THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

PRESENTED  BY 

PROF.  CHARLES  A.  KOFOID  AND 
MRS.  PRUDENCE  W.  KOFOID 


1 


TOMB    OF  BLACK^DDER 


»  238 


GEOLOGY 


BASS    ROCK, 


HUGH  MILLER, 


WITH  ITS  CIVIL   AND   ECCLESIASTIC  HISTORY  AND 
NOTICES  OF  SOME  OF  ITS  MARTYRS, 

BY  DR.  M'CRIE  AND  OTHERS. 


NEW  YORK: 

ROBERT  CARTER  AND  BROTHERS, 

285  BROADWAY, 

1852. 


IDA  ^90 


CONTENT8. 


PAGE 
THE   GEOLOGY   OF   THE   BASS,   BY   HUGH 

MILLER,    ......  9 

THE  CIVIL  AND  ECCLESIASTICAL  HISTORY 

OF  THE  BASS,  BY  THOMAS  M'CRIE,  D.D.  151 
THE  MARTYRS  OF  THE  BASS,  .  .  .213 


M365Q 


PREFATORY   NOTE. 


THE  Bass  stands  in  the  mouth  of  the  Frith  of  Forth,  about  a 
mile  and  a  half  from  the  shore.  It  is  fully  a  mile  in  circum- 
ference. It  is  about  600  feet  in  total  length,  420  above  the 
surface  of  the  sea.  On  the  north  it  is  lofty  and  precipitous.  On 
the  south  it  is  somewhat  conical,  sloping  moderately  down  to  the 
base.  Its  superficies  is  guessed  at  seven  acres.  The  Bass  is 
inaccessible,  save  at  one  point,  the  south-east.  At  one  time  the 
fortification  which  commanded  this  point  could  be  reached  only 
by  ladders,  or  a  bucket  and  chains  raised  at  the  crane  bastion ; 
but  afterwards  the  ascent  was  by  three  flights  of  stairs  within  the 
rampart,  each  protected  by  a  strong  gate  ;  these  inner  gates  have 
long  ago  disappeared.  The  fort  and  the  dungeons  are  all  unroofed 
and  in  ruins  ;  Blackadder*  s  Cell  is  still  pointed  out,  with  it3 
three  small  iron-barred  windows  to  the  west,  and  awakens  many 
a  solemn  sacred  feeling.  One  solitary  gun  yet  remains  of  the  ' 
ancient  defence,  now  much  corroded ;  the  few  other  cannon  on  the 
Bass  were  brought  thither  from  Leith  in  1822  to  salute  George 
IV.  on  his  visit  to  Scotland.  The  king  of  Belgium  visited  the 
Bass  in  1819. 

About  half-way  up  the  acclivity  of  the  rock,  a  little  below  the 
old  exposed  garden,  are  the  interesting  remains  of  a  chapel, 
pretty  entire  ;  the  wells  for  the  fonts  show  that  it  was  built  prior 
to  the  Reformation.  When  the  Bass  became  the  Bastile  of  Scot- 
land, the  state  prison  for  the  persecuted  Covenanters,  this  chapel 
was  desecrated  by  being  made  the  ammunition  magazine  for  the 
garrison. 

The  Bass  for  many  generations  was  the  property  of  an  ancient 
family  styled  Lauder  of  the  Bass,  one  of  whom  is  stated  to  have 
been  a  compatriot  of  Wallace.  This  family,  it  would  seem,  at 
length  fell  into  decay,  and  the  Bass  underwent  various 


Vlll  PREFATORY    NOTE. 

transferences.  It  was  purchased  by  Government,  in  October, 
1671,  from  Sir  Andrew  Ramsay  of  Abbotshall  for  the  sum  of 
JE4000.  The  prisons  of  our  northern  kingdom  were  then  gorged 
with  the  persecuted,  and  the  Bass  was  converted  into  a  state  prison 
for  the  Covenanters  under  Charles  II.  It  served  this  debased 
purpose  during  the  reigns  of  the  last  two  deluded  monarchs  of  the 
House  of  Stuart.  It  held  out  for  several  years  after  the  Revo- 
lution against  the  new  dynasty,  amidst  numerous  and  vigorous 
enterprises  for  its  subjection,  and  was  signalized  as  the  last  place 
in  Great  Rritain  that  yielded  to  the  dominion  of  William  III. 
In  February,  1701,  he  directed  the  fortifications  to  be  demolished. 
In  1706,  the  Bass  was  granted  by  the  Crown  to  President  Sir  Hew 
Dalrymple  for  one  Scots  penny,  reserving  the  power  of  re-fortify- 
ing the  Bass,  if  Government  at  any  time  should  think  it  proper 
to  do  so.  The  fort  and  the  prison  were  afterwards  dismantled. 
The  walls  remain  in  naked  desolation. 

The  island  is  let  to  the  keeper  for  .£30  yearly,  on  a  lease  of  19 
years.  He  resides  at  Canty  Bay,  an  opposite  hamlet  on  the  shore, 
a  mile  and  a  half  from  the  rock,  where  boats  are  always  to  be  had 
in  the  season  for  the  conveyance  of  visitors.  The  best  season  for 
visiting  the  Bass  is  June  and  July,  during  the  incubation  of  the 
geese,  and  the  best  hours  are  early  in  the  morning  or  evening. 
The  tenant  of  the  Bass  alone  possesses  the  key  of  the  Castle,  and 
it  is  to  the  honor  of  the  keeper  to  record  that  the  Sabbath  is  kept 
inviolate,  and  on  week  days  alone  the  Bass  is  to  be  visited. 

There  are  about  seven  acres  of  grassy  surface  on  the  rock 
which  afford  pasture  for  about  30  sheep.  The  pasture  rent  is 
from  £5  to  £7  annually.  The  sheep  are  in  high  estimation  for 
their  very  peculiar  excellencies,  and  bring  a  high  corresponding 
price.— [Abridged  from  the  New  Statistical  Account  of  Scot- 
land, Article  North  Berwick,  No.  xxii.,  pp.  330-333.] 


The  Bass  is  now  the  property  of  Sir  Hew  Dalrymple,  of  North 
Berwick,  Baronet,  the  lineal  descendant  of  Sir  Hew  Dalrymple, 
who  was  President  of  the  Court  of  Session  from  7th  June,  1698, 
till  his  death  on  1st  February,  1737. 


flf 


THE  BASS  ROCK,  AS   IT  NOW   APPEARS  p  11 


GEOLOGY  OF  THE  BASS, 


"  The  Bass— that  Scottish  Patmos— that  rock  of  tears  and  prayers— 
the  Bethel  as  well  as  the  dungeon  of  many  a  holy  man." 


"THERE  are  a  small  knot  of  us,"  said  a  lit- 
erary friend,  addressing  the  writer  one  evening 
about  four  months  ago,  "  getting  up  what  will, 
I  daresay,  be  a  rather  curious  volume  on  the 
Bass  ;  and  to-morrow  we  visit  the  rock  in  a  body 
to  procure  materials.  Professor  John  Fleming 
undertakes  the  Zoology  of  the  work — Professor 
Balfour  its  Botany — Professor  Thomas  M'Crie 
the  Historical  portion,  Civil  and  Ecclesiastical 
— Professor  M'Crie's  friend,  Mr.  James  Ander- 
son, a  learned  Covenanter,  grapples  with  the 
Biographies  of  what  are  termed  the  Bass  Mar- 
tyrs— while  your  humble  servant  conducts  the 
business  part  of  the  concern,  and  in  his  capa- 


12  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 


city  of  purveyor-general  waits  on  you.  Our 
to-morrow's  expedition  still  lacks  a  Geologist,  and 
our  literary  speculation,  some  one  learned  enough 
in  pre-Adamite  history  to  contribute  the  por- 
tion of  the  work  analogous  to  that  earlier  part 
of  the  Welsh  Genealogy  which  preceded  the 
famous  note,  <N.  B. — About  this  time  the  world 
was  created.7  Professor  M'Crie  goes  no  higher 
than  the  days  of  St.  Baldred  the  Culdee,  who 
died  on  the  Bass  some  time  early  in  the  sev- 
enth century,  and  was  interred  entire  in  three 
several  burying-grounds  at  once.  Will  you  not 
go  with  us  to-morrow,  and  contribute  to  our 
book  the  Geologic  history  of  the  island,  from  its 
first  appearance,  or  before,  down  to  the  times 
of  St.  Baldred?" 

"I  spent  a  day  on  the  Bass  some  four  or  five 
.  summers  ago,"  I  replied,  "  and  saw,  I  believe, 
almost  the  little  all  to  be  seen  on  it  by  the 
geologist.  It  consists  of  one  huge  mass  of 
homogeneous  trap,  scarce  more  varied  in  its 
texture  than  a  piece  of  cast  metal ;  and  what 
would  you  have  me  to  say  about  a  mass  of  homo- 
geneous trap  ?" 

"Anything,  or  everything,"  was  the  rejoin- 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  13 

der.  u  Dr.  Mantell  writes  an  ingenious  little 
book  on  a  flint  pebble  scarcely  larger  than  a 
hen's  egg.  You  may  easily  write  at  least  part 
of  a  little  book  on  a  magnificent  mass  of  rock, 
loftier  by  a  deal  than  the  dome  of  St.  Paul's, 
and  a  full  mile  in  circumference.  At  all  events, 
come  with  us ;  and  if  you  do  not  find  much  to 
say  about  the  rock  itself  you  can  eke  out  your 
description  by  notices  of  the  geology  of  the 
adjacent  coast ^  and  here  and  there  stick  in  an 
occasional  episode,  commemorative  of  whatever 
adventures  may  befall  us  by  the  way.  We  re- 
gard it  as  one  of  the  essential  requisites  of  our 
little  volume,  that  all  its  science  be  considera- 
bly diluted  with  gossip." 

I  was  unlucky  enough  to  miss  making  one  in 
next  day's  party,  all  through  lack  of  a  railway 
bill.  And  yet,  convinced  that  the  poet  Gray 
was  in  the  right  in  deeming  "  a  remark  made 
on  the  spot  worth  a  cart-load  of  recollection,"  I 
could  not  set  myself  to  write  the  Geology  of  the 
Bass  with  aught  approaching  to  comfort,  without 
having  first  renewed  with  the  rock  the  acquaint- 
ance broken  off  for  years.  But  engagements 
interfered,  and  weeks  and  months  slipped  away, 


r 

14  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

and  summer  passed  into  autumn,  and  autumn 
into  winter  ;  and  yet  the  Bass,  inaccessible,  at 
times,  during  the  boisterous  and  gloomy  season 
of  the  year  which  had  now  set  in,  for  weeks 
together,  was  still  unvisited.  I  had  fixed  on 
one  leisure  day  as  convenient  for  the  journey, 
and  it  rose  foul  with  rain.  I  had  selected  an- 
other, and  there  came  on  during  the  night  a 
storm  from  the  sea,  that  sent  up  the  white  waves 
a  full  hundred  feet  against  the  eastern  preci- 
pices of  the  island,  and  bathed  the  old  rampart 
walls  in  spray.  I  staked  my  last  chance  on  yet 
a  third  leisure  day  ;  and,  though  far  advanced 
in  November,  the  morning  broke  clear  and  bright 
as  a  morning  in  May.  Half  an  hour  after  sun- 
rise I  was  awaiting  the  downward  train  at  the 
Portobello  station.  There  blew  a  breeze  from 
the  west,  just  strong  enough,  though  it  scarce 
waved  the  withered  grass  on  the  slopes  below, 
to  set  the  wires  of  the  electric  telegraph  a- vi- 
brating overhead,  and  they  rung  sonorous  and 
clear  in  the  quiet  of  the  morning,  like  the  strings 
of  some  gigantic  musical  instrument.  How 
many  thousand  passengers  must  have  hurried 
along  the  rails  during  the  last  twelvemonth, 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 


their  ears  so  filled  by  the  grinding  noises  of  the 
wheels  and  the  snor tings  of  the  engine,  as  never 
to  have  discovered  that  each  stretch  from  post 
to  post  of  the  wires  that  accompany  them 
throughout  their  journey,  forms  a  great  .ZEolian 
harp,  full,  when  the  wind  blows,  of  all  rich  tones, 
from  those  of  the  murmurs  of  myriads  of  bees 
collecting  honey-dew  among  the  leaves  of  a  for- 
est, to  those  of  the  howlings  of  the  night-hurri- 
cane amid  the  open  turrets  and  deserted  cor- 
ridors of  some  haunted  castle.  I  bethought 
me — as  the  train,  half  enveloped  in  smoke  and 
steam,  came  rushing  up,  with  shriek  and  groan, 
and  the  melody  above,  wild  yet  singularly  pleas- 
ing, was  lost  in  the  din — of  Wordsworth's  fine 
lines  on  "  the  voice  of  tendency,''  and  found  that 
they  had  become  suddenly  linked  in  my  mind 
with  a  new  association  : — 

"  The  mighty  stream  of  TENDENCY 
Utters,  for  elevation  of  our  thought, 
A  clear  sonorous  voice,  inaudible 
To  the  vast  multitude,  whose  doom  it  is 
To  throng  the  clamorous  highways  of  the  world." 

The  Edinburgh  reader  must  have  often  mark- 
ed the  tract  of  comparatively  level  ground  which 


16  GEOLOGY   OF   THE    BASSv 

intervenes  between  Arthur's  Seat  and  the 
Pentlands  on  the  one  hand,  and  those  heights 
beyond  Tranent  on  the  other  that  merge  into 
the  Lammermoor  Hills  on  the  south,  and  piece 
on  to  the  trap  eminences  of  Haddington  and 
North  Berwick  on  the  east.  It  furnishes  no 
prominent  feature  on  which  the  eye  can  repose. 
Nay,  from  this  circumstance,  though  occupying 
a  large  portion  of  the  area  of  the  landscape,  we 
find  that  an  elegant  poet — the  "Delta"  of 
Blackwootfs  Magazine — wholly  omits  it  in 
his  description  of  the  scene  in  which  it  occurs  : 

11  Traced  like  a  map,  the  landscape  lies 
In  cultured  beauty,  stretching  wide ; 
There  Pentland's  green  acclivities — 
There  ocean,  with  its  azure  tide — 
There  Arthur's  Seat,  and,  gleaming  through, 
Thy  southern  wing,  Dunedin  blue  I 
While  in  the  orient,  Lammer's  daughters, 
A  distant  giant  range,  are  seen — 
North  Berwick  Law,  with  cone  of  green, 
And  Bass  amid  the  waters." 

The  natural  objects  enumerated  here — of  course 
omitting  the  ocean — are  the  imposing  emi- 
nences that  form  the  opposite  shores  of  the 
middle  expanse — Arthur's  Seat  and  the  Pent- 
lands  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  Lammermoors, 


GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS.  17 


North  Berwick  Law,  and  the  Bass,  on  the  other. 
And  the  parts  of  the  Frith  opposite  these  bold- 
ly-featured regions  partake  strikingly  of  their 
character.  The  middle  space  that  fronts  the 
flat  district  ashore  does  not  present  a  single 
island ;  whereas  directly  opposite  the  upper 
tract  of  hill  and  valley,  we  find  numerous  hill- 
tops rising  above  the  water,  and  forming  the 
islands  of  Inchkeith,  Inchcolm,  Inchgarvie,  Inch- 
mykrie,  Carcraig,  and  Cramond ;  while  op- 
posite the  lower  tract  we  find  another  scene  of 
half-submerged  hills  existing  as  the  islets  of 
Eyebroughy,  Fidra,  the  Lamb,  Craigleith,  the 
Bass,  and  the  May.  Now,  this  inconspicu- 
ous flat  space  between,  which  leaves  the  sea  so 
open  to  the  mariner,  and  the  land  so  free  to  the 
plough,  and  over  which  the  first  twelve  miles  of 
my  journey  along  the  rails  lay  this  morning, 
forms  the  eastern  coal  deposit,  or  basin,  of  the 
Lothians.  The  traveller  may  distinguish,  on 
either  hand,  from  the  windows  of  his  carriage, 
the  numerous  workings  that  stud  the  surface, 
by  their  tall  brick  chimneys  and  the  .smoke  of 
their  engines  ;  and  mark  the  frequent  train 
sweeping  by,  laden  with  coals  for  the  distant 


18  8E0LOO1    OF  Tin; 


city.     To  conceive  of  a  its  charac- 

ter as  a  basin.  one  }  [uairfted 

with  not  merely  tho.se  external  features  of  the 
country  to  which  I  have  adverted,  but  also  with 
the  internal  arrangement  of  its  strata.  Stand- 
ing on  the  banks  of  a  Highland  lake  of  profound 
depth,  such  as  Loch  Ness,  or  the  upper  portion 
of  Loch  Lomond,  one  <  •<;  of  the 

rocky  hollow  in  which  the  waters  are  contained 
as  a  vast  bowl  or  Usin.  and  this  altogether 
irrespective  of  the  form  of  the  1  portion 

of  the  valley  that  rises  over  the  surface.  We 
can  conceive  of  the  rocky  hollow  occupied  by  the 
lake  as  a  true  D  the 

middle  of  so  flat  a  moor,  that  in  winter,  when 
the  water  is  frozen  over,  and  a  snow->;tom. 
deep  on  the  earth,  the  surface  of  moor  and  lake 
presented  one  continuous  plain.     W  e  c  an 
ceiveof  a  steep  .sloping  .side  trending  into  u  rocky 
bottom  many  fathoms  below  :  then  the  opp 
side  rising  in  an  angle  equally  .steep  :  and. 
of  all,  the  horizontal  line  of  ice  or  water  stretch- 
ing across  the  abyss,  like  the  strir  i  the 

curve  formed  by  a  bow  bent  tight  by  the  archer. 
The  Coal  Measures  of  the  Lothians  repn 


GEOLOGY    OF   THE    BASS,  19 

pretty  nearly  such  a  lake  :  and  their  shores — 
though,  unlike  those  of  the  lake  of  my  illustra- 
tion, sufficiently  bold  to  strike  the  eye  as  the 
leading  features  of  the  landscape  in  which  they 
are  included — hear  no  comparison  in  height  to 
the  profound  depth  of  the  submerged  portion 
at  their  feet.  The  ancient  strata  trend  down- 
wards in  a  steep  angle  from  their  sides,  to  the 
depth  of  at  least  three  thousand  feet,  and  then, 
flattening  in  the  centre  of  the  lake  into  a  curved 
bottom,  rise  against  the  opposite  eminences  in 
an  angle  equally  steep.  Were  the  Coal  Meas- 
ures to  be  removed  from  that  deep  basin  of  the 
more  ancient  rocks  in  which  they  lie,  there 
would  intervene  between  Arthur's  Seat  and  the 
Pentlands  on  the  rid  the  Garlton  Hills 

and  Gullan  Point  on  the  east,  the  profoundest 
valley  in  Scotland — a  valley  considerably  more 
profound  than  Corriskin,  Glen  Nevis,  or  Glencoe. 
The  twelve  miles  of  railway  which  intervene 
between  Piershill  Barracks  and  the  Garlton 
Hills,  may  be  regarded  as  a  sort  of  suspension 
bridge,  stretched  over  the  vast  gulf;  and  the 
profound  depth  below  is  occupied  by  one  hun- 
dred and  seventy  beds  of  shale,  sandstone,  coal, 


20  GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS. 

and  clay,  ranged  in  long  irregular  curves  that 
lie  parallel  to  the  bottom,  and  of  which  no  fewer 
than  thirty-three  are  seams  of  coal.  And  over 
all,  as  their  covering,  like  the  stratum  of  ice 
and  snow  spread  over  the  surface  of  the  High- 
land lake  of  my  illustration,  lie  the  boulder  and 
brick  clays,  beds  of  sand  and  gravel,  and  the 
vegetable  mould. 

On  reaching  the  station-house  at  Drem,  I 
transferred  myself  from  the  railway  vehicle  to 
an  omnibus  that  plies  between  the  station  and 
North  Berwick  ;  and  we  drove  across  the  coun- 
try. A  coach-top  is  not  quite  the  place  from 
which  the  geology  of  a  district  may  be  most 
carefully  studied  ;  and  yet  it  has  its  adA^antages 
too.  There  cannot  be  a  better  point  of  observa- 
tion from  which  to  acquaint  one's-self  with  what 
may  be  termed  the  geological  physiognomy  of  a 
country.  One  sees,  besides,  of  what  materials 
the  walls  that  line  the  sides  of  the  way  are 
composed  ;  and  they  almost  always  furnish  their 
modicum  of  evidence  regarding  the  prevailing 
rocks.  When  speeding  along  the  railway  over 
the  Coal  Measures,  the  traveller  finds  that  the 
fences  are  constructed  of  sandstone ;  whereas 


GEOLOGY   OF   THP:    BASS.  21 

in  the  district  across  which  the  omnibus  here 
conveys  him7  he  sees  that  they  are  almost  all 
built  of  trap.  And  with  this  piece  of  evidence 
the  features  of  the  surrounding  landscape  en- 
tirely harmonize.  The  general  surface  of  the 
country  ia  soft  and  rich ;  but  abrupt  rocks — 
the  broken  bones  of  the  land — here  and  there 
stick  out  high  over  the  surface,  as  if  to  mark  the 
wounds  and  fractures  of  ancient  conflict.  There 
are  the  Garlton  Hills  behind ;  a  long  ridge  of 
feldspar  porphyry  rises  immediately  on  the 
left ;  on  the  right,  the  greenstone  eminence  on 
which  the  old  Castle  of  Dirleton  is  built  ascends 
abruptly  from  beside  the  smooth  area  of  one  of 
the  loveliest,  most  English-looking  villages  in 
Scotland  ;  northwards,  encircled  by  the  sea,  we 
may  descry  the  precipitous  trap  islets  of  Fidra, 
the  Lamb,  and  Craigleith  ;  several  inland  crags, 
more  in  the  fore-ground,  and  half-hidden  in  wood, 
stud  the  sandy  campaign  which  here  lines  the 
coast ;  while  on  the  east,  immensely  more  huge 
than  the  hugest  of  the  Egyptian  pyramids,  and, 
as  seen  from  this  point,  scarce  less  regularly 
pyramidal  in  its  outline,  towers  the  noble  mo- 
narch of  the  scene — 


22  GEOLOGY    OF'  THE    BASS. 

"  North  Berwick  Law,  with  cone  of  green." 
In  passing  the  ancient  Castle  of  Dirleton, 
which,  like  the  Castles  of  Dunbar,  Edinburgh, 
Stirling,  and  Dumbarton,  owed  its  degree  of 
impregnability  as  a  stronghold  mainly  to  its 
abrupt  trap-rock,  and  which  stood  siege  against 
the  English  in  the  days  of  Edward  L,  it  occur- 
red to  me  as  not  a  little  curious,  that  the  early 
geological  history  of  a  district  should  so  often 
seem  typical  of  its  subsequent  civil  history.  If 
a  country's  geological  history  was  very  disturb- 
ed— if  the  trap-rocks  broke  out  from  below,  and 
tilted  up  its  strata  in  a  thousand  abrupt  angles, 
steep  precipices,  and  yawning  chasms — the 
chance  is  as  ten  to  one,  that  there  succeeded 
when  man  came  upon  the  scene,  a  history,  scarce 
less  disturbed,  of  fierce  wars,  protracted  sieges, 
and  desperate  battles.  The  stormy  morning, 
during  which  merely  the  angry  elements  con- 
tend, is  succeeded  in  almost  every  instance  by 
a  stormy  day,  maddened  by  the  turmoil  of  hu- 
man passion.  A  moment's  farther  cogitation, 
while  it  greatly  dissipated  the  mystery,  served 
to  show  through  what  immense  periods  mere 
physical  causes  may  continue  to  operate  with 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  23 

moral  effect ;  and  how,  in  the  purposes  of  Him 
who  saw  the  end  from  the  beginning,  a  scene  of 
fiery  confusion — of  roaring  waves  and  heaving 
earthquakes — of  ascending  hills  and  deepening 
valleys — may  have  been  closely  associated  with 
the  right  development,  and  ultimate  dignity 
and  happiness,  of  the  yet  unborn  moral  agent  of 
creation — responsible  man.  It  is  amid  these 
centres  of  geologic  disturbance— the  natural 
strongholds  *of  the  earth — that  the  true  battles 
of  the  race — the  battles  of  civilization  and  civil 
liberty — have  been  successfully  maintained  by 
handfuls  of  hardy  men,  against  the  despot-led 
myriads  of  the  plains.  The  reader,  in  glancing 
over  a  map  of  Europe  and  the  countries  adja- 
cent, on  which  the  mountain-groups  are  mark- 
ed, will  at  once  perceive  that  Greece  and  the 
Holy  Land,  Scotland  and  the  Swiss  Cantons, 
formed  centres  of  great  Plutonic  disturbance  of 
this  character.  They  had  each  their  geologic 
tremors  and  perturbations  -—  their  protracted 
periods  of  eruption  and  earthquake — long  ere 
their  analogous  civil  history,  with  its  ages  of 
convulsion  and  revolution,  in  which  man  was  the 
agent,  had  yet  commenced  its  course.  And, 


24  GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS. 

indirectly  at  least,  the  disturbed  civil  history 
was,  in  each  instance,  a  consequence  of  the  dis- 
turbed geologic  one. 

While  pursuing  the  idea,  a  sudden  turning  of 
the  road  brought  me  full  in  view  of  the  Bass, 
looming  tall  and  stately  through  a  feint  gray 
haze,  that  had  dropped  its  veil  of  thin  gauze 
over  the  stern  features  of  the  rock.  But  the 
Bass,  though  one  of  the  Plutonic  strongholds  of 
the  earth,  and  certainly  not  the  least  impregna- 
ble among  the  number,  has,  so  far  as  the  policy 
and  character  of  its  old  masters  are  exhibited 
in  the  record,  no  very  ennobling  history.  It 
has  been  strong  chiefly  on  the  side  of  the  des- 
pot and  the  tyrant.  Its  name  appears  in  our 
earlier  literature  only  to  be  associated  with 
lying  legends  and  false  miracles.  Then,  after 
forming  for  centuries  the  site  of  a  stronghold 
little  remarkable  in  the  annals  of  the  country, 
save  that  the  unfortunate  James  L  took  sail 
from  it  for  France  previous  to  his  long  captivi- 
ty in  England,  the  rock  was  converted  into  a 
State  prison,  at  a  time  when  to  worship  God 
agreeably  to  the  dictates  of  conscience  was  a 
grave  State  offence.  And  so  its  dungeons  came 


GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS.  25 

to  be  filled  with  not  a  few  of  the  country's  best 
men.     At  a  still  later  period,  it  held  out  for 
James  VII.,  and  was   the  last  spot  in  Great 
Britain  that  recognized  as  legitimate  the  event 
which  placed  the  Constitution  of  the  empire  on 
its  present  happy  basis.     And  then,  for  a  time, 
it  became  a  haunt  of  lawless  pirates,  the  dread 
of  defenceless  fishermen  and  the  honest  trader. 
How  reconcile  with  so  disreputable  a  history, 
the  feelings    of    respect  and  veneration   with 
which  the   old  rock  is  so  frequently  surveyed, 
and  so  extensively  associated  ?     Johnson,  in  his 
singularly    vigorous  and   manly   poem,   which 
poets,  such  as  Sir  Walter  Scott,  have  so  greatly 
admired,  but  which  mere  critics  have  censured 
as  non-poetical,   speaks  of  a  virtue  "  sovereign 
o'er    transmuted  ill."     Virtue  does  possess  a 
transmutative   power.     The  death   of  patriots 
and  heroes  under  the  hands  of  public  execution- 
ers confers  honor  on  scaffolds  and  gibbets  ;  the 
prison  cells  of  martyrs  and  confessors  breathe 
forth    recollections    of    the    endurance  of  the 
persecuted,  that  absorb  all  those  harsher  asso- 
ciations which  link  on  to  the  memory  of  the  per- 
secutor.    Nay,  even  instruments  of  fierce  tor- 
2 


26  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

ture  come  to  be  regarded  less  as  the  repulsive 
mementoes  of  a  ruthless  cruelty,  than  as  the 
valued  relics  of  a  high  heroism.  And  hence 
the  interest  that  attaches  to  the  Bass. 

It  is  now  many  years  since  I  gazed  on  this 
rock  for  the  first  time,  from  the  Frith  beyond ; 
but  the  recollection  of  the  emotions  which  it 
excited  is  still  fresh.  Some  of  its  more  cele- 
brated sufferers  came  from  the  immediate  neigh- 
borhood of  the  locality  in  which  I  passed  my 
childhood  and  boyhood,  with  my  first  years  of 
labor — a  little  northern  oasis,  in  which,  during 
the  times  of  the  persecution  of  Charles  II.  and 
his  brother,  Presbyterianism  was  as  strong  and 
vital  as  in  any  district  of  the  south  or  west ; 
and  the  "  echoes  of  their  fame,"  to  employ  the 
language  of  Wordsworth,  "  ring  through'7  that 
part  of  "  Scotland  to  this  hour."  In  the  quar- 
ry in  which  I  first  became  acquainted  with 
severe  toil,  and  an  observer  of  geological  pheno- 
mena, I  used  to  know  when  it  was  time  to  cease 
from  my  labors  for  the  day,  by  marking  the 
evening  sun  resting  over  the  high-lying  farm- 
house of  Brea — the  little  patrimony  from  which 
one  of  the  captives  of  the  Bass — Fraser — deriv- 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  27 

ed  his  title.  And  from  the  grassy  knoll  above 
the  hollow  I  could  see  the  parish  churches  of 
two  of  its  other  more  noted  captives — M'Gilli- 
gen  of  Alness,  and  Hog  of  Kilt  earn.  Hence 
many  an  imagination  about  the  rocky  Bass, 
with  its  high-lying  walks  and  dizzy  precipices, 
had  filled  my  rnind  long  ere  I  had  seen  it.  I 
have  now  before  me,  among  the  jottings  of  an 
old  journal,  a  brief  record  of  the  feelings  with 
which  I  first  surveyed  it  from  the  deck  of  a  sail- 
ing-vessel ;  nor,  though  the  passage  does  smack, 
I  find,  of  the  enthusiasm  of  early  youth,  am  I 
greatly  ashamed  of  it.  "We  are  bearing  up 
the  Frith  in  gallant  style,  within  two  miles  of 
the  shore,  and  shall  in  a  few  hours,  if  the  breeze 
fail  not,  be  within  sight  of  Edinburgh.  Yonder 
is  the  Bass,  rising  like  an  immense  tower  out 
of  the  sea.  Times  have  changed  since  the  ex- 
cellent of  the  earth  were  condemned  by  the 
unjust  and  the  dissolute  to  wear  out  life  on  that 
solitary  rock.  My  eyes  fill  as  I  gaze  on  it ! 
The  persecutors  have  gone  to  their  place  :  the 
last  vial  has  long  since  been  poured  out  on  the 
heads  of  the  infatuated  race  who,  in  their  short- 
sighted policy,  would  fain  have  rendered  men 


28  GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS. 

faithful  to  their  Princes  by  making  them  untrue 
to  their  God.  But  the  noble  constancy  of  the 
persecuted,  the  high  fortitude  of  the  martyr, 
still  live  ;  there  is  a  halo  encircling  the  brow  of 
that  rugged  rock ;  and  from  many  a  solitary 
grave,  and  many  a  lonely  battle-field,  there 
come  voices  and  thunderings  like  those  which 
issued  of  old  from  within  the  cloud,  that  tell  us 
how  this  world,  with  all  its  little  interests,  must 
pass  away,  but  that  for  those  who  fight  the  good 
fight,  and  keep  the  faith,  there  abideth  a  rest 
that  is  eternal." 

It  is  not  uninstructive  to  remark,  from  facts 
and  feelings  such  as  these — and  the  instances 
on  record  are  very  great — how  much  more  per- 
manently good  connects  itself  with  matter,  in 
the  associations  of  the  human  mind,  than  evil. 
The  wickedness  of  the  wicked  cannot  so  enfeoff 
itself,  if  one  may  so  speak,  in  even  their  contri- 
vances of  diabolical  design — screws,  and  boots, 
and  thumbkins,  dolorous  dungeons,  and  scaffolds 
hung  round  with  the  insignia  of  disgrace — but 
that  the  virtues  of  their  victims  seize  hold  upon 
them,  and  so  entirely  appropriate  them  in  the 
recollection  of  future  generations,  that  the  claim 

I 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  29 

of  the  original  possessors  is  lost.  What  a  strik- 
ing comment  on  the  sacred  text,  "  The  memory 
of  the  just  is  blessed  ;  but  the  name  of  the 
wicked  shall  rot !"  It  seems  to  throw  a  gleam 
of  light,  too,  athwart  a  deeply  mysterious  sub- 
ject. It  was  a  greatly  worse  time  than  the  pre- 
sent in  this  country,  when  the  dungeons  of 
yonder  rock  were  crowded  with  the  country's 
most  conscientious  men.  And  yet  how  intense 
the  interest  with  which  we  look  back  upon  these 
times  ;  and  on  the  rock  itself,  as  a  sort  of  step- 
ping-stone by  which  to  ascend  to  their  scenes 
of  ready  sacrifice,  firm  endurance,  and  high 
resolve  ;  and  how  very  poor  would  not  the  na- 
tional history  become,  were  all  its  records  of 
resembling  purport  and  character  to  be  blotted 
out  !  The  evil  of  the  past  has  served  but  to 
enhance  its  good.  May  there  not  be  a  time 
'coming  when  the  just  made  perfect  shall  look 
back  upon  all  ill,  moral  and  physical,  with  a 
similar  feeling  !  when  the  tree  of  the  know- 
ledge of  good  and  evil  shall  grow  once  more 
beside  the  tree  of  life  in  the  paradise  of  God, 
but  when  its  fruit,  rendered  wholesome  by  the 
transmutative  power,  shall  be  the  subject  of  no 


30  GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS. 

punitive  prohibition  ;  and  when  the  world  which 
we  inhabit,  wrapped  round  with  holiest  associa- 
tions, as  once  the  dungeon-house  and  scaffold  of 
a  Divine  Sufferer,  shall  be  regarded — disrepu- 
table as  we  may  now  deem  its  annals — with 
reverence  and  respect,  as  the  Bass  of  the  uni- 
verse, and  its  history  be  deemed  perhaps  the 
most  precious  record  in  the  archives  of  heaven  ? 
I  found  a  friend  waiting  me  at  North 
Berwick,*  who  kindly  accompanied  me  in  my 
exploratory  ramble  along  the  shore,  and  who, 
as  his  acquaintance  with  the  district  wTas  greatly 
more  minute  than  mine,  enabled  me  to  economize 
much  time.  We  passed  eastwards  under  the 
cliffs,  and  soon  found  ourselves  on  the  prevail- 
ing trap-tuff  of  the  district,  a  curiously  com- 
pounded rock,  evidently  of  Plutonic  origin,  and 
yet  as  regularly  stratified  as  almost  any  rock 
belonging  to  the  Neptunean  series.  The  body 
of  the  tuff  consists  of  loosely  aggregated  grains, 
in  some  of  the  beds  larger,  in  some  more  minute, 
of  the  various  trap-rocks  and  minerals,  such  as 
green-earth,  wacke,  a  finely  levigated  basalt, 

*  James  Cook,  Esq.  one  of  Her  Majesty's  Heralds,  pre- 
sently residing  at  North  Berwick. 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  31 

and  decomposed  greenstone ;  and,  inclosed  in 
this  yielding  matrix,  there  lie  fragments  of  the 
harder  traps,  some  sharp  and  angular,  others 
water-worn  and  round,  that  vary  in  size  from  a 
hazel-nut  to  a  hogshead.  It  incloses  also  occa- 
sional fragments  of  the  aqueous  rocks — here  a 
mass  of  red  sandstone,  there  a  block  of  lime. 
There  occasionally  occur  in  it,  too,  viewed  over 
large  areas,  trap  and  sedimentary  rocks  of  vast 
size,  beds  of  the  aqueous  series  many  hundred 
feet  in  extent,  and  masses  of  the  Plutonic  that 
exist  as  tall  precipices  or  extensive  skerries  ; 
but  they,  of  course,  can  be  regarded  as  no  part 
of  the  tuff.  As  might  be  premised  from  its  in- 
coherent texture,  we  find  it  to  be  an  exceedingly 
yielding  rock.  Wherever  the  lofty  line  of  ram- 
part which  it  here  presents  to  the  coast  en- 
croaches on  the  sea,  we  perceive  that,  hollowed 
beneath  by  the  dash  of  the  waves,  it  exhibits 
ranges  of  bold  over-beetling  precipices  ;  while, 
wherever  it  retires,  we  discover  that  it  has 
weathered  down  into  steep  green  slopes,  with 
here  arid  there  some  of  the  harder  masses  which 
it  incloses  sticking  picturesquely  through.  The 
enigma  that  most  imperatively  demands  being 


32  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

read  in  the  case  of  this  rock  is  the  union  of 
sedimentary  arrangement  with  Plutonic  mate- 
rials ;  nor  does  it  seem  a  riddle  particularly 
difficult  of  solution. 

In  the  works  of  the  Abbe  Spallanzani,  a  dis- 
tinguished continental  naturalist  who  flourished 
during  the  latter  half  of  the  last  century,  the 
reader  may  find  an  elaborate  description  of  the 
volcano  of  Stromboli,  one  of  the  Lipari  Islands. 
There  are,  it  would  seem,  several  respects  in 
which  this  volcano  furnishes  peculiar  facilities 
to  the  observer.  It  occurs  not  on  the  apex,  but 
on  the  side  of  a  mountain ;  and  is  so  entirely 
commanded,  in  consequence,  by  the  heights 
which  rise  over  it,  that  the  visitor,  if  the  neces- 
sary courage  be  not  wanting,  may  approach  so 
as  to  look  down  into  the  boiling  depths  of  the 
crater.  Unlike  most  other  volcanoes,  it  is  in  a 
state  of  perpetual  activity  ;  and,  what  is  of  still 
more  importance  for  our  present  purpose,  it 
rises  so  immediately  over  the  sea,  that  no  in- 
considerable portion  of  the  calcined  or  molten 
matter  which  it  has  been  ejecting  day  by  day, 
and  hour  by  hour,  for  at  least  the  last  two  thou- 
sand years,  falls  hissing  into  the  water.  The 


GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS.  33 

Plutonic  agent  gives  up  its  charge  direct  into 
the  hands  of  the  sedimentary  one.  Spallanzani 
relates,  in  his  lively  description,  how,  venturing 
as  near  the  perilous  chasm  as  he  at  first  deemed 
safe,  he  found  the  view  not  sufficiently  com- 
manding ;  and  how,  looking  around,  "  he  per- 
ceived a  small  cavern  hollowed  in  the  rock,  near 
the  gulf  of  the  volcano,"  which,  "  taking  advan- 
tage of  one  of  the  short  intervals  between  the 
eruptions,7'  he  was  fortunate  enough  to  gain. 
"  And  here,"  he  says,  "  protected  by  the  roof  of 
the  cavern,  I  could  look  down  into  the  very 
bowels  of  the  volcano,  and  Truth  and  Nature 
stood,  as  it  were,  unveiled  before  me."  "  I 
found  the  crater,"  he  continues,  "  filled  to  a  cer- 
tain height  with  a  liquid  red-hot  matter,  resem 
bling  melted  brass,  which  is  the  fluid  lava. 
This  lava  appears  to  be  agitated  by  two  distinct 
motions  ;  the  one  intestine,  whirling,  and  tumul- 
tuous ;  the  other  that  which  impels  it  upwards. 
The  liquid  matter  is  raised  sometimes  with 
mone,  sometimes  with  less  rapidity  within  the 
crater ;  its  superficies  becomes  inflated,  and 
covered  with  large  bubbles,  some  of  which  are 
several  feet  in  diameter ;  and  when  it  has 


34  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

readied  the  distance  of  twenty-five  or  thirty 
feet  from  the  upper  edge,  a  sound  is  heard  not 
unlike  a  short  clap  of  thunder — the  bubbles 
presently  burst,  and  at  the  same  moment  a  por- 
tion of  the  lava,  separated  into  a  thousand 
pieces,  is  thrown  up  with  indescribable  swift- 
ness, accompanied  with  a  copious  eruption  of 
smoke,  ashes,  and  sand.  After  the  explosion, 
the  lava  within  the  crater  sinks,  but  soon  again 
rises  as  before,  and  new  tumors  appear,  which 
again  burst,  and  produce  new  explosions."  "  In 
the  smaller  and  moderate  ejections,"  he  adds, 
"  the  stones,  still  so  hot  that  their  redness,  not- 
withstanding the  light  of  the  sun,  is  distinctly 
visible  in  the  air,  fall  back  into  the  crater,  and, 
at  their  collision  with  the  fluid  lava,  produce  a 
sound  similar  to  that  of  water  struck  by  a  num- 
ber of  staves;  but  in  the  greater  ejections,  a 
considerable  quantity  always  fall  outside  the 
crater's  mouth,  and,  bounding  down  the  steep 
declivity,  dash  into  the  sea,  giving,  on  entering 
the  waves,  that  sharp  hissing  sound  which  in  a 
lesser  degree  is  produced  by  a  bar  of  red-hot 
iron  plunged  by  a  smith  into  a  trough  of  water." 
The  Abbe,  on  another  occasion,  approached,  he 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  35 

tells  us,  the  foot  of  the  slope  on  its  seaward  side, 
and  saw  the  "  ignited  stones "  rolling  down. 
"  The  five  sailors,"  he  says,  "  who  had  the  care 
of  the  boat  in  which  I  was,  and  some  other  na- 
tives of  Stromboli  who  were  with  me,  and  whose 
occupation  often  brought  them  to  that  part  of 
the  sea,  told  me  that  the  volcano  might  now  be 
considered  as  very  quiet ;  assuring  me  that  in 
its  greater  fits  of  fury  red-hot  stones  were  fre- 
quently thrown  to  the  distance  of  a  mile  from 
the  shore,  and  that,  consequently,  at  such  times 
it  was  impossible  to  remain  with  a.  boat  so  near 
the  mountain  as  we  then  were.  And  their  as- 
sertion  appeared  to  me  sufficiently  proved  by  a 
comparison  of  the  size  of  the  fragments  thrown 
out  in  the  explosions  I  now  witnessed,  with  that 
of  those  which  had  been  ejected  in  several  former 
eruptions.  The  first  (many  of  which  had  stopped 
at  the  bottom  of  the  precipice)  were  not  more 
than  three  feet  in  diameter ;  while  many  of  the 
fragments  thrown  out  at  other  times,  of  similar 
quality  to  them,  and  which  lay  in  large  heaps 
on  the  shore,  were,  some  four,  some  five  feet  in 
diameter,  and  others  even  still  larger."  The  tract 
of  sea  immediately  beneath  is  much  perplexed 


36  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

with  currents,  and  exposed  to  storms  (the  Lipari 
Isles,  in  mythologic  history,  formed  the  kingdom 
of  old  ^Eolus) ;  and  though,  since  the  volcano 
existed  in  its  active  state,  lava  and  ashes  to  the 
amount  of  many  millions  of  cubical  yards  must 
have  been  cast  out — and  though  at  one  time, 
about  forty-four  years  previous  to  the  date  of 
Spallanzani's  visit,  it  ejected  "  such  an  immense 
quantity  of  scoriae,- that  it  caused,"  to  use  the  ex- 
pression of  his  informants,  "  a  dry  place  in  the 
sea  " — the  debris  has  been  so  diffused  by  the 
waves  and  tides,  that  there  is  a  depth  of  about 
twenty  fathoms  found  but  a  few  hundred  yards 
in  front  of  the  crater.  The  ejected  materials 
are  spread  by  the  sedimentary  agents  over  a 
large  superficies.  Now,  in  the  semi-Neptunean, 
semi-Plutonic  deposit  of  Stromboli,  which  is 
even  now  in  the  forming,  we  are  presented  with 
every  condition  necessary  to  the  formation  of 
such  a  deposit  of  stratified  tuff  as  that  which 
composes  so  considerable  a  portion  of  the  coast 
of  North  Berwick.  There  is  first  the  general 
matrix  of  ashes,  sand,  and  triturated  lava,  laid 
down  in  continuous  layers  by  the  aqueous 
agent;  then  the  embedded  fragments  of  the 


r 

GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS.  37 

^ 

harder  Plutonic  rocks,  varying  in  bulk  from  the 
size  of  a  pea,  up  to  blocks  of  more  than  five  feet 
in  diameter  ;  and,  lastly,  with  the  transporting 
agency  of  tides  and  waves  at  command,  the 
|  occasional  introduction  of  fragments  of  sedimen- 
tary rock,  either  derived  from  strata  broken  up 
when  the  volcano  originally  burst  forth,  or  carried 
from  a  distance,  can  be  no  very  inexplicable 
enigma. 

As  we  proceeded  towards  the  cottages  of  the 
fishermen  of  Canty  Bay,  where  boat  for  the  Bass 
is  usually  taken,  I  was  informed  by  my  com- 
panion, that  Dr.  Fleming,  who  had  been  resid- 
ing for  several  weeks,  during  the  previous  sum- 
mer, at  North  Berwick,  had  detected  on  the 
surfaces  of  the  trap-rocks  near  the  harbor,  une- 
quivocal marks  of  the  action  of  icebergs.  He 
found  exactly  such  grooves  and  furrows  on  these 
rocks  as  had  been  found  by  Lyell  on  those  of 
the  coast  of  Nova  Scotia,  where  the  producing 
cause  is  still  at  work,  and  every  scratch  and 
line  may  be  traced  to  the  half-stranded  masses 
that,  dimly  seen  during  the  tempests  of  the 
winter  gone  by,  had  grated  harshly  along  the 
skerries  of  the  shore.  Certainly  the  associa- 


38  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

tions  of  the  geologist  take  a  wide  range — "  From 
beds  of  raging  fire,  to  starve  in  ice."  The  rocks 
here;  in  their  structure  and  composition,  speak 
of  Plutonic  convulsion  and  the  fiery  abyss  ; 
while  the  inscriptions  on  their  surfaces  testify 
of  a  time  when  colossal  icefloes,  stranded  upon 
our  shores, 

"  Lay  dark  and  wild,  beat  with  perpetual  storms 
Of  whirlwind  and  dire  hail,  which  on  firm  land 
Thaw'd  not,  but  gathered  heap,  and  ruin  seemed 
Of  ancient  pile  ;  all  else  deep  snow  and  ice." 

The  Bass  is  perforated  by  a  profound  cavern, 
occasionally  accessible  at  extreme  ebb.  We  had 
purposed  attempting  its  exploration ;  and  as 
the  tide,  though  fast  falling,  still  stood  high  on 
the  beach,  we  whiled  away  an  hour  or  two — 
after  first  securing  the  services  of  the  boatmen 
— awaiting  the  recession  of  the  water,  in  exam- 
ining the  coast  still  farther  to  the  east,  and  in 
surveying  the  magnificent  ruins  of  Tantallan. 
For  at  least  several  centuries  the  ancient  edifice 
has  been  associated  in  a  familiar  proverb  with 
the  imposing  islet  opposite,  as  the  subject  of 
two  impossibilities  : — 

"  Ding  down  Tantallan — 
Mak'  a  brig  to  the  Bass :" — 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  39 

a  half  stanza  which  served  for  ages  to  charac- 
terize the  sort  of  achievements  which  cannot  be 
achieved  ;  and  which,  according  to  an  old  mili- 
tary tradition,  formed  the  burden  of  the  "  Scots 
March."  Hamilton  of  Gilbertfield,  a  name  once 
familiar  in  Scotch  poetry,  assures  Allan  Ram- 
say, in  one  of  his  metrical  epistles,  that 

"Nowthcr  Hielanman  nor  Lawlan', 

In  poetrie, 

But  mocht  as  weel  ding  down  Tantallan 
As  match  wi'  thee." 

But  we  live  in  times  in  which  the  family  of  the 
impossibles  is  fast  becoming  extinct.  The  Bass 
still  remains  unbridged,  only  because  no  one 
during  the  late  railway  mania  chanced  to  pro- 
pose running  a  line  in  that  direction  ;  we  have 
seen  the  verse  of  Ramsay  considerably  more 
than  matched  by  poets,  both  of  Highland  and 
Lowland  extraction  ;  and  Time  is  fast  "  dinging 
down"  the  stately  towers  of  Tantallan.  Addi- 
son,  in  his  vision  of  the  picture-gallery,  could 
see  among  the  master-pieces  of  the  dead  paint- 
ers only  one  artist  at  work — an  old  man  with  a 
solitary  tuft  of  long  hair  upon  his  forehead,  who 
wrought  with  a  pencil  so  exceedingly  minute, 


40  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

that  a  thousand  strokes  produced  scarce  any 
visible  impression,  and  who,  as  a  colorist,  dealt 
chiefly  in  brown.  I  recognised  the  same  ancient 
gentleman  seated  high  on  the  central  tower  of 
Tantallan,  engaged  apparently  in  whetting  a. 
scythe  on  the  stonework  of  the  edifice,  and  ever 
and  anon  blowing  away  the  detached  particles 
of  dust  with,  his  breath.  He  seemed  to  be  quite 
as  leisurely  now  in  his  habits  as  when  seen  in 
the  days  of  Queen  Anne  among  the  pictures. 
But  there  was  an  expression  of  wonderful  power 
stamped  on  his  calm,  pale,  passionless  visage  : 
and  when  I  saw  the  marvels  which  he  had  ac- 
complished in  his  quiet  way — how,  after  laying 
the  doughty  Douglases  on  their  back,  he  had 
broken  down  the  drawbridge  of  their  impregna- 
ble stronghold,  and  half  filled  up  the  moat,  and 
torn  the  iron  gate  of  their  dungeon  off  its  hinges, 
and  laid  corridor  and  gallery  open  to  the  winds 
of  heaven — and  how,  still  as  unfatigued  as  if  his 
tasks  had  but  just  begun,  he  was  going  on  in 
his  work  without  rest  or  intermission — I  could 
not  avoid  recognising  him  as  one  of  the  most 
formidable  opponents,  or  most  potent  allies, 
that  cause  or  party  could  possibly  possess  ;  and 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  41 

felt  that  it  betrayed  nought  approximating  to 
conceit  in  Sir  Walter  Scott,  that  he  should  have 
employed  so  confidently,  and  on  so  many  occa- 
sions, his  favorite  Spanish  proverb, 

"  Time  and  /,  gentlemen,  against  any  two." 

The  castle  of  Tantallan  consists  of  three 
massive  towers,  united  by  two  curtains  of  lofty 
rampart,  that  stretch  across  the  neck  of  a  small 
promontory  of  trap-tuff,  hollowed  into  inaccessi- 
ble precipices  by  the  waves  below.  The  entire 
fortali.ce  consists  of  three  sides  of  wall-like  rock, 
and  one  side  of  rock-like  wall — the  edifice,  if 
laid  down  elsewhere,  would  be  simply  a  piece 
of  detached  masonry,  that  inclosed  no  area,  and 
could  be  rendered  subservient  to  no  purpose  of 
defence  ;  and  so  it  seems  difficult  to  imagine  a 
less  fortunate  conception  regarding  it  than  that 
of  a  local  topographer,  viz.  :  that  though  at 
present  "  nearly  insulated,  it  once  stood  at  a 
considerable  distance  from  the  sea,"  and  what 
is  now  the  perpendicular  cliff  immediately 
behind  "  ended  in  a  gentle  slope,  which  ex- 
tended greatly  beyond  the  Bass."  The  strong- 
hold, so  situated,  would  be  in  exactly  the  cir- 


42  GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS. 

cumstances  of  the  old  warrior  in  the  ballad, 
who,  setting  his  back  to  a  dry-stone  fence  to 
defend  himself  against  odds,  found  his  rear  laid 
hopelessly  open  by  the  demolition  of  the  crazy 
erection  behind.  Change  has  not  been  quite  so 
rapid  in  its  march  as  the  myth  here  would 
argue ;  and  the  geologist  may  find  on  these 
ruins  marks,  not  only  of  its  progress,  but  of  the 
rate  at  which  it  goes  on.  The  two  curtains, 
with  the  eastern  and  western  towers,  are  com- 
posed of  a  pale-colored  Old  Red  Sandstone — in 
the  main  a  durable  stone,  though  some  of  the 
hewn  surfaces  have  become  hollowed,  under  the 
weathering  influences,  like  pieces  of  honey- 
comb, and  the  "  bloody  heart"  is  falling  away 
piecemeal  from  the  armorial  shield  over  the 
gateway.  But  the  greater  part  of  the  central 
tower,  evidently  a  later  erection,  is  formed  of  a 
fine-grained  trap-tuff ;  and  with  it  the  agencies 
of  decomposition  and  decay  have  been  working 
strange  vagaries.  The  surfaces  of  the  solid 
ashler  have  retreated  at  least  half  a  foot  from 
the  original  line,  while  the  more  durable  cement 
in  which  they  were  embedded  stands  out  around 
and  over  them  in  thin  crusts,  resembling  hollow 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  43 

cowls  projecting  over  wasted  heads — like,  for 
instance,  the  becowled  head  of  the  spectre  monk 
in  the  "  Castle  of  Otranto."  Now,  this  trap- 
tuff  portion  of  the  tower — evidently  no  part  of 
the  original  design,  but  a  mere  after-thought— 
is  in  all  probability  not  older  than  the  days  of 
Archibald,  sixth  Earl  of  Angus,  the  nephew  of 
the  poet  Gawin  Douglas,  and  the  stepfather  of 
James  V.3  of  whom  it  is  known,  that  on  his  re- 
turn from  exile  on  the  death  of  James,  he 
greatly  strengthened  the  edifice  ;  and  its  state 
of  keeping  serves  to  show  how  much,  when  ope- 
rating on  such  materials,  the  tear  and  wear  of 
a  few  centuries  may  do.  I  bethought  me,  in 
front  of  the  old  wasted  tower — as  I  marked  at 
my  feet  a  fragment  of  dressed  stone,  which, 
covered  up  till  very  recently  by  the  soil,  still 
retained  the  marks  of  the  tool  with  all  the  ori- 
ginal sharpness — of  the  time-worn  aspect  ex- 
hibited by  the  more  exposed  slopes  and  preci- 
pices of  the  hills  and  mountains  of  our  country, 
compared  with  the  dressed  and  polished  ap- 
pe^ance  which  they  so  often  present  in  those 
portions  which  a  protecting  cover  of  mould  or 
clay  has  shielded  from  the  disintegrating  influ- 


44  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

ences.  Arthur's  Seat,  with  its  worn  and  li- 
chened  precipices,  shattered  by  the  frosts  and 
rains  of  many  centuries,  resembles  the  time- 
wasted  tower  ;  while  the  stretch  of  grooved  and 
furrowed  rock  on  its  southern  flank,  which  the 
workmen  engaged  in  forming  the  Queen's  Drive 
laid  bare  about  two  years  ago,  and  which  seemed 
at  the  time  as  if  it  had  been  operated  upon  by 
some  powerful  polishing  machine  only  a  day  or 
two  previous,  represents  the  piece  of  disinterred 
stone,  sharp  from  the  chisel.  And  in  the  case 
of  both  the  tower  and  the  hill,  as  in  many  other 
matters,  things  are  not  what  they  appear  to  be. 
The  hewn  surface  of  the  tower  was  a  greatly 
more  ancient  surface  than  the  present  one  ;  and 
it  is  but  the  more  modern  frontage  of  Arthur's 
Seat  that  presents  the  marks  of  a  hoar  anti- 
quity ;  while  its  dressed  and  polished  portions, 
which  appear  so  modern,  are  portions  of  what 
is  truly  its  old  skin,  not  yet  cast  off.  It  was 
once  all  scratched  and  polished  from  base  to 
summit,  just  as  the  wasted  tower  once  exhibited, 
from  basement  to  battlement,  the  marks  of  <the 
mallet :  nay,  all  Scotland,  from  the  level  of  the 
sea  to  the  height  of  fifteen  hundred  or  two 


GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS.  45 

thousand  feet,  seems  to  have  been  dressed  after 
this  mysterious  style,  as  if  scoured  over  its 
entire  area  on  some  general  cleaning  night. 
But  the  central  tower  of  Tantallan  tells  us  how 
and  why  it  is  that  only  on  the  less  exposed 
portions  of  the  surface  of  the  country  need  we 
look  for  evidence  of  this  strange  serubbing- 
bout — it  is  only  on  the  buried  pieces  of  the 
hewn  work,  if  we  may  so  speak,  that  we  find 
the  sharp  markings  of  the  tool. 

The  inclosed  area  of  the  fortress — cut  off 
from  the  land  by  the  towers  and  their  curtains, 
and  surrounded  seawrards  by  a  line  of  inacces- 
sible precipices — we  find  occupied  by  a  range 
of  sorely  dilapidated  buildings,  that  rise  in 
rough  edged  picturesqueness  on  the  west,  im- 
mediately over  the  rock-edge,  and  by  a  piece 
of  rich  garden  ground,  fringed  on  the  north  and 
east  by  thickets  of  stunted  elder.  The  ruins 
and  the  neglected  garden  are  all  that  remain  of 
the  scene  which  Scott  has  so  well  described  in 
JJarinion,  as  a  favorite  haunt  of  the  Lady 
Clare  :- 

"I  said,  Tantallan's  dizzy  steep, 
Hung  o'er  the  margin  of  the  deep, 


46  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

And  many  a  tower  and  rampart  there 

Repelled  the  insult  of  the  air ; 

Which,  when  the  tempest  vexed  the  sky, 

Half  breeze,  half  spray,  came  whistling  by ; 

Above  the  booming  ocean  lent 

The  far  projecting  battlement ; 

The  billows  burst  in  ceaseless  flow, 

Deep  on  the  precipice  below ; 

And  stcepy  rock  and  frantic  tide, 

Approach  of  human  step  defied." 

A  fine  morning  had  matured  into  a  lovely 
day.  The  sun  glanced  bright  on  the  deep 
green  of  the  sea  immediately  beneath  ;  and  the 
reflection  went  dancing  in  the  calm,  in  wave- 
lets of  light,  athwart  the  shaded  faces  of  the 
precipices  ;  while  a  short  mile  beyond,  the 
noble  Bass  loomed  tall  in  the  offing,  half  in 
light,  half  in  shadow ;  and,  dimly  discerned 
through  the  slowly  dissipating  haze,  in  the  back 
ground  rose  the  rampart-like  crags  of  the  Isle 
of  May.  ISTor  was  the  framing  of  the  picture, 
as  surveyed  through  one  of  the  shattered  open- 
ings of  the  edifice,  without  its  share  of  pic- 
turesque beauty  :  it  consisted  of  fantastically 
piled  stone,  moulded  of  old  by  the  chisel,  and 
now  partially  o'ershadowed  by  tufts  of  withered 
grass  and  half-faded  wallflower.  Could  the  old 


I 


GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS.  47 

stately  lords  of  the  Castle  have  tasted,  I  asked 
myself,  the  poetry  of  a  scene  which  they  must 
have  so  often  surveyed?  And,  as  if  to  re- 
buke the  shallow  petulance  that  would  restrict 
whatever  is  exquisite  in  sentiment  to  one's 
own  superficial  times,  that  "noble  Lord  of 
Douglas  blood,"  who  "  gave  rude  Scotland  Vir- 
gil's page,"  and  who  must  a  thousand  times  have 
looked  out  upon  the  sublime  features  of  the 
prospect  from  the  very  spot  on  which  I  now 
stood,  seemed  to  raise  his  mitred  front  in  the 
opening,  and  then,  stalking  by,  tall  and  stately, 
to  evanish  amid  the  ruins.  The  "  schot-wyndo," 
that  he  "  unschet  ane  litel  on  char,"  to  look  out 
upon  the  bleak  winter  morning  which  he  so 
graphically  describes  in  one  of  his  prologues, 
may  have  been  the  identical  shot-window 
through  which,  a  moment  before,  I  had  cast  a 
careless  glance  upon  the  sea  ;  and  these  were 
the  vaulted  passages  through  which  he  must 
have  so  often  paced,  ere  the  field  of  Flodden 
was  stricken,  calling  up,  as  he  himself  ex- 
presses it,  in  a  line  which  would  have  stamped 
him  poet  had  he  never  written  another, 

"  Gousty  schaddois  of  cild  and  grisly  deed." 


48  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

I  succeeded  in  scrambling  up  to  a  middle 
range  of  apartments  that  are  hollowed  in  the 
thickness  of  the  front  rampart ;  but  there  is  an 
upper  range,  inaccessible  without  a  ladder, 
which  I  failed  in  reaching,  and  which,  if  once 
attained,  might  be  made  good  by  five  against 
five  hundred  any  day.  I  was  informed  by  my 
companion,  that  some  four  or  five-and-thirty 
years  ago,  when  he  was  a  boy  at  school,  this 
upper  range  was  seized  and  garrisoned  by  a 
gang  of  mischievous  thieves,  headed  by  an 
old  sailor,  who  had  been  wrecked  shortly  before 
on  the  rocky  islet  of  Fidra,  and  had  taken  a 
fancy  to  the  ancient  ruin.  They  had  construct- 
ed a  ladder  of  ropes,  which  could  be  let  down 
or  drawn  up  at  pleasure;  and  sallying  out, 
always  in  the  night-time,  they  annoyed  the 
country  week  after  week,  by  depredations  on 
portable  property  of  all  kinds,  especially  pro- 
visions— depredations  which,  though  they  al- 
ways left  mark  enough  behind  them,  never 
left  quite  enough  to  trace  them  by  to  the  de- 
predators. Sheep  were  carried  off  and  slaugh- 
tered in  the  fields  •  the  larders  of  gentlemen 
who,  like  all  men  of  sense,  valued  good  din- 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  49 

ners,  were  broken  into,  and  turkey  and  tongue 
extracted ;  bakers  were  robbed  of  their  flour 
— provision  merchants  of  their  hams  ;  a  ves- 
sel in  the  harbor,  on  the  eve  of  sailing,  was 
lightened  of  her  sea-stock  ;  one  worthy  burgher, 
much  in  the  habit  of  examining  objects  in  the 
distance,  had  his  spy-glass  stolen — another  was 
denuded  of  his  clothes ;  the  mansion-house 
of  Seacliff  was  harried — the  farm-house  of 
Scoughall  plundered ;  and  quiet  men  and  re- 
spectable women  grew  nervous  over  three  whole 
parishes,  when  they  thought  of  the  light-finger- 
ed invisibilities  that  wrought  the  mischief,  and 
asked  what  was  to  come  next.  Some  of  the 
North  Berwick  fishermen  had  seen  lights  at 
night  twinkling  high  amid  the  ruins  from  slit 
openings  and  shot-holes  :  but  supernaturalities 
are  all  according  to  nature  in  connection  with 
such  ruins  as  Tantallan ;  and  so  the  lights  ex- 
cited no  suspicion.  A  highlandman  who  had 
been  sent  by  his  master  to  plant  ivy  against  the 
old  walls,  had  been  pelted  by  an  unseen  hand 
with  bits  of  lime ;  but  he  was  by  much  too 
learned  in  such  things  not  to  know  that  it  is 
fatal  to  blab  regarding  the  liberties  which  the 
3 


50  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

denizens  of  the  spiritual  world  take  with  mortals ; 
and  so  he  wisely  held  his  tongue.  At  length, 
however,  just  as  the  general  dismay  had  reach- 
ed its  acme,  the  haunt  of  the  thieves  was  discov- 
ered by  some  young  girls,  who,  when  employ- 
ed in  thinning  turnips  in  the  garden  of  the  Cas- 
tle, were  startled  by  the  apparition  of  a  weather- 
beaten  face,  surmounted  by  a  red  Kilmarnock 
nightcap,  gazing  at  them  as  intently  from  a 
window  in  the  fourth  story  of  the  edifice,  as  if 
the  owner  of  the  cap  and  face  had  been  some 
second  Christy  of  the  Cleek,  and  longed  to  eat 
them.  They  fled,  shrieking,  along  the  identical 
passage  through  which  the  "  good  Lord  Mar- 
niion"  escaped  the  grim  Douglas,  when 

"  The  ponderous  grate  behind  him  rung ;" 

the  neighborhood  was  raised,  the  hold  stormed, 
and,  after  a  desperate  resistance,  the  old  sailor 
captured ;  and  with  his  ultimate  banishment 
by  the  magistracy,  the  last  incident  in  the  his- 
tory of  Tantallan  terminated.  The  earlier  pas- 
sages were  of  a  more  chivalric  character  ;  and 
yet,  when,  on  groping  my  way  into  the  dungeon 
of  the  fortress — a  gloomy  cell  nearly  level  with 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  51 

the  moat  outside — I  saw  one  narrow  opening, 
through  which  I  could  discern  only  a  minute 
patch  of  sky  rising  slantwise  in  the  ponderous 
wall  to  the  surface,  and  another  still  narrower 
opening,  through  which  I  could  discern  only  a 
minute  patch  of  sea  slanting  downwards  into 
the  solid  rock — when  I  had  breathed  for  a  few 
moments  the  dead  stagnant  air  of  the  place,  and 
marked  the  massive  iron  hinges  of  the  door 
corroded  into  mere  skeletons  by  the  unwhole- 
some damps — when  I  had  looked  upon  the  nak- 
ed walls,  and  the  rubbish-covered  floor,  and 
the  low-browed  roof  of  dripping  stone — I  deem- 
ed it  a  greatly  better  matter  to  be  contempora- 
ry with  low  rogues,  such  as  the  sailor  in  the 
red  Kilmarnock  nightcap,  than  with  high-spirit- 
ed, mail-covered,  steel-helmed  robbers,  such  as 
those  ancient  lords  of  Tantallan  who  had  kept 
the  key  of  this  dolorous  dungeon,  and  could 
serve  at  will  the  unhappy  captives  which  it  had 
once  contained,  as  one  of  them  had  served  Mac- 
lellan,  tutor  of  Bomby,  in  their  dungeon  at 
Thrieve. 

We  quitted  the  ruins,  and  returned  to  Canty 
Bay  along;  the  cliffs.     There  occur  between  the 


52  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

bay  and  the  Castle,  as  if  inlaid  in  the  trap-tuff, 
two  immense  beds  of  the  Old  Red  Sandstone  of 
the  district ;  while  a  third  bed,  of  at  least  equal 
extent,  occurs  a  few  hundred  yards  to  the  east 
of  the  ruins,  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  man- 
sion-house of  Seacliff.  In  a  locality  in  which 
the  surface  has  been  so  broken  up  that  at  least 
three-fourths  of  its  present  area  is  composed  of 
the  disturbing  trap,  and  in  which  the  old  sedi- 
mentary rocks  exist  as  mere  insulated  patches, 
there  can,  of  course,  be  no  satisfactory  determi- 
nation regarding  the  relations  of  strata.  There 
are,  however,  various  appearances  which  led  me 
to  believe  that  these  beds  occur,  when  in  their 
proper  place,  deep  in  the  old  Red,  and  that  in 
their  present  position  they  lie  not  far  from  the 
ancient  focus  of  disturbance.  They  exhibit, 
what  is  greatly  more  common  towards  the  base 
than  in  the  upper  deposits  of  the  system,  a 
large  amount  of  false  stratification  ;  they  hold 
a  middle  place,  in  point  of  distance,  between 
the  last  patches  of  the  lower  Coal  Measures 
which  appear  on  the  coast  of  Dirleton  to  the 
west,  and  the  first  patches  that  appear  on  the 
coast  of  Dunbar  on  the  east ;  while  the  lie  of 


GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS.  53 

their  true  strata,  not  very  greatly  removed  in 
some  of  the  beds  from  the  horizontal,  indicates 
a  nearly  central  application  of  the  disturbing 
force.  This  last  circumstance  is  not  uuworthy 
of  notice.  Insulated  patches  of  stratified  rock, 
so  covered  up  by  soil  and  diluvium  that  their 
relations  cannot  be  traced,  are  often  held  to 
have  escaped  the  disturbing  influences,  if  their 
strata  but  rest  in  the  original  horizontal  line ; 
whereas  the  horizontality  of  their  position  may 
be  a  consequence,  not  of  the  absence  of  disturb- 
ance, but  merely  of  its  focal  proximity.  Behe- 
moth, rising  amid  a  field  of  float-ice,  may  occa- 
sion considerable  disturbance  and  derangement 
among  the  pieces  that  tilt  up  against  his  sides  ; 
but  the  pieces  which  he  carries  up  on  his  back 
retain  nearly  their  original  position  of  undis- 
turbed horizontality.  I  spent  a  day,  early  in 
the  autumn  of  the  present  year,  in  examining 
that  junction,  at  Siccar  Point,  of  the  Old  Red 
conglomerate  with  the  still  older  slate  rocks  and 
micaceous  schists  of  the  district  which  Playfair, 
in  his  Memoir  of  Button  has  rendered  classi- 
cal ;  and  found  the  principle  to  which  I  refer, 
of  apparent  non-disturbance  immediately  over 


54  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

the  focus  where  the  disturbance  had  been  great- 
est, as  finely  illustrated  by  the  section  as  at 
least  any  of  the  other  phenomena  which  its  ap- 
pearances have  been  cited  to  substantiate. 

I  enjoyed  on  this  occasion  the  companionship 
of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Dodds  of  Belhaven,  and  found 
his  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  district,  and 
with  geological  fact  in  general,  of  great  value. 
On  passing  along  the  railway  to  the  east  of  the 
town,  where  the  strata,  exposed  on  each  side  by 
the  excavation,  exhibit  those  alternations  of 
sandstone  and  shale  so  common  in  the  Coal 
Measures,  he  informed  me  that  at  this  point 
the  workmen  had  found  numerous  fossils  ;  and 
he  afterwards  kindly  procured  for  me  one  of  the 
specimens — a  block  of  indurated  shale,  largely 
charged  with  two  well-known  corals  of  the  Car- 
boniferous Limestone — Cyathophyllum  fungi- 
tes  and  Tubipora  radiatus.  A  full  mile  and 
a  quarter  from  where  the  primary  rock  first  ap- 
pears, we  saw  decided  marks  of  the  disturbance 
which  it  occasioned.  The  Old  Eed  Sandstone, 
exhibited  here  in  sections  of  enormous  thick- 
ness, lies  tilted  up  against  it  in  an  angle  which 
heightens  as  we  proceed,  till  it  assumes,  at  the 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  55 

point  'of  junction,  a  nearly  vertical  position. 
But  the  focus  of  disturbance  once  reached,  the 
marks  of  disturbance  cease  ;  and  the  occasion- 
al patches  of  the  Old  Red  which  here  and  there 
appear,  rest  horizontally  on  the  primary  rock. 
They  are,  to  return  to  my  illustration,  the  ice- 
fragments  which,  carried  up  on  the  broad  back 
of  Behemoth,  rest  on  their  original  planes, 
while  those  that  lean  against  his  sides  have 
been  set  steeply  on  edge.  The  Siccar  Point  is 
hollowed  into  a  wildly  romantic  cavern,  open  to 
the  roll  of  the  sea,  and  scooped  almost  exclu- 
sively out  of  an  ancient  bed  of  purplish-colored 
clay-slate,  raised  like  the  schist  in  which  it  is 
intercalated,  in  a  nearly  vertical  angle ;  and 
which  presents,  in  the  weathering,  a  sort  of  fan- 
tastic fret-work,  as  if  a  fraternity  of  Chinese 
carvers  had  been  at  work  on  its  sides  for  ages. 
And  forming  the  roof  of  the  cavern,  and  laid 
down  as  nicely  horizontal  on  the  sharp  edges 
of  the  more  ancient  strata,  as  if  the  levelling 
rule  of  the  mason  or  carpenter  had  been  em- 
ployed in  the  work,  we  see  stretching  over  head, 
the  lowest  bed  of  the  Old  Red  Sandstone.  On 
this  very  point,  with  the  noble  cavern  full  in 


56  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

front,  old  Hutton  stood  and  lectured  ;  and  he  had 
for  his  auditory,  Playfair  and  Sir  James  Hall. 
But  a  description  of  the  scene  in  Playfair's  own 
words  may  at  least  serve  to  show  how  admira- 
bly these  Huttonians  of  the  last  age  could  write 
as  well  as  reason  : — 

"  The  ridge  of  the  Lammermuir  Hills,  in  the 
south  of  Scotland,  consists,"  says  the  accom- 
plished Professor,  "  of  primary  micaceous  schis- 
tus,  and  extends  from  St.  Abb's  Head  west- 
ward, till  it  joins  the  metalliferous  mountains, 
about  the  sources  of  the  Clyde.  The  sea-coast 
affords  a  transverse  section  of  this  Alpine  tract 
at  its  eastern  extremity,  and  exhibits  the 
changes  from  the  primary  to  the  secondary 
strata,  both  on  the  south  and  on  the  north.  Dr. 
Hutton  wished  particularly  to  examine  the  lat- 
ter of  these,  and  on  this  occasion  Sir  James 
Hall  and  I  had  the  pleasure  to  accompany  him. 
We  sailed  in  a  boat  from  Dunglas  on  a  day 
when  the  fineness  of  the  weather  permitted  us 
to  keep  close  to  the  foot  of  the  rocks  which  line 
the  shore  in  that  quarter,  directing  our  course 
southwards  in  search  of  the  termination  of  the 
secondary  strata.  We  made  for  a  high  rocky 


GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS.  57 

point  or  headland,  the  tSiccar,  near  which,  from 
our  observations  on  shore,  we  knew  that  the  ob- 
ject we  were  in  search  of  was  likely  to  be  dis- ' 
covered.  On  landing  at  this  point,  we  found 
that  we  actually  trod  on  the  primeval  rock 
which  forms  alternately  the  base  and  the  sum- 
mit of  the  present  land.  It  is  here  a  mica- 
ceous schistus,  in  beds  nearly  vertical,  highly 
indurated,  and  stretching  from  south-east  to 
north-west.  The  surface  of  this  rock  runs  with 
a  moderate  ascent,  from  the  level  of  low  water 
.  at  which  we  landed,  nearly  to  that  of  high  water, 
where  the  schistus  has  a  thin  covering  of  red 
horizontal  sandstone  laid  over  it ;  and  this  sand- 
stone, at  the  distance  of  a  few  yards  farther 
back,  rises  into  a  very  high  perpendicular  cliff. 
Here,  therefore,  the  immediate  contact  of  the 
two  rocks  is  not  only  visible,  but  is  curiously 
dissected  and  laid  open  by  the  action  of  the 
waves.  The  rugged  tops  of  the  schistus  are 
seen  penetrating  into  the  horizontal  beds  of 
sandstone,  and  the  lowest  of  these  last  form  a 
breccia  containing  fragments  of  schistus,  some 
round  and  others  angular,  united  by  an  arena- 
ceous cement. 

3* 


58  GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS. 

"  Dr.  Hutton,"  continues  the  Professor,  "  was 
highly  pleased  with  appearances  that  set  in  so 
'  clear  a  light  the  different  formations  of  the 
parts  which  compose  the  exterior  crust  of  the 
earth,  and  where  all  the  circumstances  were 
combined  that  could  render  the  observation  sat- 
isfactory and  precise.  On  us,,  who  saw  these 
phenomena  for  the  first  time,  the  impression 
made  will  not  easily  be  forgotten.  The  palpa- 
ble evidence  presented  to  us  of  one  of  the  most 
extraordinary  and  important  facts  in  the  nat- 
ural history  of  the  earth,  gave  a  reality  and 
substance  to  those  theoretical  speculations, 
which,  however  probable,  had  never  till  now  been 
directly  authenticated  by  the  testimony  of  the 
senses.  We  often  said  to  ourselves,  what  clearer 
evidence  could  we  have  had  of  the  different  for- 
mation of  these  rocks,  and  of  the  long  interval 
which  separated  these  formations,  had  we  actu- 
ally seen  them  emerging  from  the  bosom  of  the 
deep?  We  felt  ourselves  necessarily  carried 
back  to  the  time  when  the  schistus  on  which  we 
stood  was  yet  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  and 
when  the  sandstone  before  us  was  only  begin- 
ning to  be  deposited,  in  the  shape  of  sand  or 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  59 

mud,  from  the  waters  of  a  superincumbent 
ocean.  An  epocha  still  more  remote  presented 
itself,  when  even  the  most  ancient  of  these 
rocks,  instead  of  standing  upright  in  vertical 
beds,  lay  in  horizontal  planes  at  the  bottom  of 
the  sea,  and  were  not  yet  disturbed  by  that  im- 
measurable force  which  has  burst  asunder  the 
solid  pavement  of  the  globe.  Revolutions  still 
more  remote  appeared  in  the  distance  of  this 
extraordinary  perspective.  The  mind  seemed 
to  grow  giddy  by  looking  so  far  into  the  abyss 
of  time  ;  and  while  we  listened  with  earnest- 
ness and  admiration  to  the  philosopher  who  was 
unfolding  to  us  the  order  and  series  of  these 
wonderful  events,  we  became  sensible  how  much 
farther  reason  may  sometimes  go,  than  imagi- 
nation can  venture  to  follow.  As  for  the  rest, 
we  were  truly  fortunate  in  the  course  we  had 
pursued  in  this  excursion  ;  a  great  number  of 
other  curious  and  important  facts  presented 
themselves  ;  and  wre  returned,  having  collected 
in  one  day  more  ample  materials  for  future 
speculation  than  have  sometimes  resulted  from 
years  of  diligent  and  laborious  research." 
On  reaching  Canty  Bay,  we  found  the  boat- 


60  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

men  in  readiness  ;  and,  embarking  for  the  Bass, 
rowed  leisurely  around  the  island.  What,  per- 
haps, first  strikes  the  eye  in  the  structure  of 
the  precipices,  as  the  boat  sweeps  outwards 
along  the  western  side,  is  the  number  of  verti- 
cal lines  by  which  they  are  traversed.  No  one 
would  venture  to  describe  the  rock  as  columnar  ; 
and  yet,  like  most  of  the  trap-rocks — like  Salis- 
bury Crags,  for  instance,  or  the  Castle  rock  of 
Edinburgh  towards  the  south  and  west,  or  the 
basaltic  summit  of  Arthur's  Seat — the  artist 
who  set  himself  to  transfer  its  likeness  to  pa- 
per or  canvass  would  require  to  deal  much  more 
largely  in  upright  strokes  of  the  pencil  than  in 
strokes  of  any  other  kind.  A  similar  peculiar- 
ity may  be  observed  in  some  of  the  primary 
districts.  The  porphyritic  precipices  of  Glen- 
coe  are  barred  along  the  course  of  the  valley, 
on  both  sides,  by  strongly  marked  vertical  lines, 
that  harmonize  well  with  the  sharp  perpendic- 
ular peaks  atop ;  and  where  the  vertical  lines 
and  perpendicular  peaks  cease,  whether  at  the 
upper  or  lower  opening  of  the  glen,  the  travel- 
ler may  safely  conclude  that  he  has  entered  on 
a  different  formation.  As  wre  pass  seawards 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  61 

under  the  higher  precipices  of  the  Bass,  the  ver- 
tical lining  takes  a  slightly  outward  cast ;  the 
rude  columns  seem  bent  forward  like  the  bay- 
onet-armed muskets  of  a  foot-regiment  placed 
in  the  proper  angle  for  repelling  the  charge  of 
a  troop  of  horse  ;  and  on  the  shelves  formed 
by  the  rude  cross  jointing  of  these  columns,  do 
the  innumerable  birds  that  frequent  the  rock 
find  the  perilous,  mid -air  platforms  on  which 
they  rear  their  young.  At  the  time  of  my 
former  visit,  to  borrow  from  Old  Dunbar — 

"  The  air  was  dirldt  with  the  fowlis, 
That  cam  with  yammeris  and  with  yowlis, 
With  shrykking,  screeking,  skrymming,  scowlis, 
And  meikle  noyis  and  showtes." 

But  all  was  silent  to-day.  November,  accord- 
ing to  the  quondam  missionary  of  St.  Kilda, 
is  the  "  deadest  month  of  the  year  ;"  "  the  bulk 
of  the  fowls  having  deserted  the  coast,  leave  the 
rocks  black  [i.  e.,  white]  and  dead."  I  was  not 
sufficiently  aware,  during  my  previous  visit, 
how  very  much  the  birds  add  to  the  effect  of 
the  rock  scenery  of  the  island.  The  gannet 
measures  from  wing-tip  to  wing-tip  full  six  feet ; 
the  great  black  gull,  five ;  the  blue  or  herring 


62  GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS. 

gull,  about  four  feet  nine  inches  ;  and,  flying  at 
all  heights  along  the  precipices,  thick  as  motes 
in  the  sunbeam — this  one,  so  immediately  over 
head  that  the  well-defined  shadow  which  it  casts 
darkens  half  the  yawl  below — that  other,  well 
nigh  four  hundred  feet  in  the  air,  though  still 
under  the  level  of  the  summit — they  serve,  by 
their  gradations  of  size,  from  where  they  seem 
mere  specks  in  the  firmament,  to  where  they 
exhibit,  almost  within  staff  reach,  their  amplest 
development  of  bulk,  as  objects  to  measure  the 
altitudes  by.  And  these  altitudes  appear  con- 
siderably less  when  they  are  away.  But  an 
abrupt  rock  tower,  rising  out  of  the  sea  to  the 
height  of  four  hundred  and  twenty  feet,  must 
be  always  an  imposing  object,  whatever  its  ac- 
companiments, or  let  us  measure  it  as  we  may. 

"  Dread  rock !  thy  life  is  two  eternities — 
The  last  in  air — the  former  in  the  deep ; 
First  with  the  whales — last  with  the  eagle  skies : 
Drowned  wast  thou  till  an  earthquake  made  thee  steep ! 
Another  cannot  bow  thy  giant  size !" 

• 

I  was  not  fortunate  enough  to  effect  a  land- 
ing in  the  great  cavern  by  which  the  island  is       j 
perforated ;  the  tide  had  not  fallen  sufficiently 


GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS.  63 

low  to  permit  the  approach  of  the  boat  through 
the  narrow  opening  to  the  beach  within  ;  and, 
pleasant  as  the  day  was,  an  incipient  frost  ren- 
dered it  rather  "a  naughty  one  for  swimming 
in."  But  we  approached  as  near  as  the  strait 
vestibule — half  blocked  up  by  a  rock  that  at 
every  recession  of  the  wave  showed  its  pointed 
tusk  above  water — gave  permission  ;  and  I  saw 
enough  of  the  cave  to  enable  me  to  conceive  of 
its  true  character  and  formation.  One  of  those 
slicken-sided.  lines  of  division  so  common  in  the 
trap-rocks,  runs  across  the  island  from  east  to 
west,  cutting  it  into  two  unseparated  parts,  im- 
mediately under  the  foundations  of  the  old  chapel. 
As  is  not  uncommon  along  these  lines,  whether 
occasioned  by  the  escape  of  vapors  from  below 
or  the  introduction  of  moisture  from  above,  the 
rock  on  both  sides,  so  firm  and  unwasted  else- 
where, is  considerably  decomposed  ;  and  the 
sea,  by  incessantly  charging  direct  in  this  soft- 
ened line  from  the  stormy  east,  has,  in  the  lapse 
of  ages,  hollowed  a  passage  for  itself  through. 
A  fine  natural  niche,  a  full  hundred  feet  in 
height — such  a  one,  perhaps,  as  that  which 
Wordsworth  apostrophises  in  his  Sonnets  on 


64  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

the  River  Duddon — forms  the  opening  of  the 
cavern,  the  roof  bristling  high  over  head,  with 
minute  tufts  of  a  beautiful  rock-fern,  the  base- 
ment-course, if  I  may  so  speak,  roughened  with 
brown  algse,  and  having  the  dark  green  sea  for 
its  floor.  But  the  cavern  beyond  seems  scarce 
worthy  of  such  a  gateway ;  the  roof  appears 
from  this  point  to  close  in  upon  it ;  and  a  pro- 
jection from  one  of  the  sides  completely  shuts 
up  its  long  vista  to  the  sea  and  the  daylight  on 
the  opposite  side  of  the  island.  The  height  of 
this  tunnel  of  nature's  forming  is  about  thirty 
feet  throughout ;  its  length  about  a  hundred 
and  seventy  yards.  Not  far  from  its  western 
opening  there  occurs  a  beach  of  gravel,  which, 
save  when  the  waves  run  high  during  the  flood 
of  stream  tides,  is  rarely  covered.  Its  middle 
space  contains  a  dark  pool,  filled  even  at  low 
ebb  with  from  three  to  four  feet  water  ;  and  an 
accumulation  of  rude  boulders  occupies  the  re- 
maining portion  of  its  length,  a  little  within  the 
eastern  entrance.  It  is  a  dark  and  dreary 
recess,  full  of  chill  airs  and  dropping  damps — 
such  a  cavern  as  that  into  which  the  famous 
Sinbad  the  Sailor  was  lowered,  at  the  command 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  65 

of  his  dear  friend  the  king,  when  his  wife  had 
died,  and  agreeably  to  the  courtesy  of  the  coun- 
try, he  had  to  be  buried  with  her  alive,  in  order 
to  keep  her  company. 

So  quiet  was  this  delicate  winter  day,  as 
Gilbert  White  would  term  it,  and  so  smooth  the 
water,  that  we  effected  our  landing  on  the  Bass 
without  a  tithe  of  the  risk  or  difficulty  which 
the  midsummer  visitors  of  the  rock  have  not 
unfrequently  to  encounter.  The  only  landing- 
places,  two  in  number,  occur  on  a  flat  shelving 
point  which  forms  the  south-eastern  termina- 
tion of  the  island.  Our  boatmen  selected,  on 
this  occasion,  the  landing-place  in  more  imme- 
diate proximity  with  the  fortress,  as  the  better 
of  the  two ;  and  we  found  its  superiority  owing 
to  the  circumstancerthat  it  had  been  originally 
cut,  at  no  inconsiderable  expense  of  labor,  into 
the  living  rock  ;  here  of  so  solid  a  consistence 
that — to  employ  the  words  used  by  Sir  Walter 
in  describing  a  similar  undertaking — "  a  laborer 
who  wrought  at  the  work  might  in  the  evening 
have  carried  home  in  his  bonnet  all  the  shivers 
which  he  had  struck  from  the  mass  in  the  course 
of  the  day." 


66  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

The  flat  point  in  which  the  landing-place  is 
hollowed  forms  a  lateral  prolongation  of  the 
lowest  of  three  shelves  or  platforms,  into  which, 
with  precipitous  cliffs  between,  the  sloping  sur- 
face of  the  island  is  divided  ;  and  the  upper 
part  of  this  lowest  shelf  or  platform,  which  rises 
in  level  as  it  sweeps  from  the  eastern  to  the 
western  precipices,  is  occupied  by  the  ancient 
fortress.  The  stronghold  was  so  designed  that 
a  single  stretch  of  wall  built  across  the  point — 
and  at  its  one  extremity  joining  on  to  the  here 
inaccessible  cliff  which  rises  towards  the  second 
platform  of  the  island,  and  terminating,  at  its 
other  extremity,  with  the  sheer  rock-edge,  that 
descends  perpendicularly  into  the  sea — served 
to  shut  up  the  whole  Bass.  The  entire  plat- 
form somewhat  resembles  in  shape  a  gigantic 
letter  A — the  flat  shelving  point,  with  its  land- 
ing places,  representing  the  lower  part  of  the 
letter,  up  to  the  transverse  stroke — the  higher 
portion  of  the  platform,  occupied  by  the  various 
buildings  of  the  fortress,  the  part  of  the  letter 
above  the  stroke — and  the  single  cross  wall 
made  effective  in  shutting  up  so  much,  the 
transverse  stroke  itself.  To  this  transverse 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  67 

rampart  there  joins  on  at  right  angles  a  longi- 
tudinal rampart — a  line,  to  follow  up  my  pecu- 
liarly literary  illustration,  drawn  from  the  mid- 
dle of  the  cross  stroke  of  the  A  to  the  apex  of 
the  letter  ;  or  if  the  reader  has  been  accustom- 
ed to  disentangle  and  peruse  those  fantastic 
ciphers,  curiously  compounded  of  capital  letters, 
which  one  so  frequently  finds  inscribed  on  the 
mouldering  tablets  and  storied  lintels  of  ancient 
castles,  he  may  conceive  of  it  as  a  T  reversed, 
inscribed  within  a  greatly  larger  A,  the  central 
cross  line  of  the  cipher  serving  to  form  the 
transverse  stroke  of  each  of  the  component  let- 
ters. And  this  longitudinal  rampart,  by  run- 
ning along  the  middle  of  the  inclosed  portion  of 
the  shelf,  both  served  to  front  the  sea  with  its 
tier  of  cannon,  for  purposes  of  offence,  and  to 
protect  defensively  from  distant  cannonading, 
the  buildings  which  lie  clustered  behind.  The 
whole  fortalice,  in  short,  may  be  conceived  of, 
in  the  ground  plan,  as  a  gigantic  letter  T,  for 
the  A  represents  chiefly  the  ground  on  which  it 
stands.  And  while  any  part  of  it  might  be 
battered  from  a  distance,  only  the  transverse 
portion  of  it  could  be  approached  by  an  enemy 


68  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

from  the  landing-places  ;  the  longitudinal  por- 
tion, protected  in  front  by  inaccessible  rocks, 
and  in  flank  by  the  transverse  wall,  being  as 
entirely  included  in  the  inclosed  area,  outside 
its  parapet  as  within. 

All  the  doors  of  the  deserted  fortalice  now 
lie  open,  except  one — a  door  by  which  the  ten- 
ant of  the  Bass  fences  against  unauthorised 
visitors  the  upper  part  of  the  island,  with  its 
flocks  of  unfledged  gannets  and  its  sheep  ;  and 
this  door,  as  it  occurs,  not  in  the  transverse 
wall,  but  at  the  top  of  a  long  ascending  passage 
beyond,  leaves  the  space  in  front  of  the  longi- 
tudinal rampart  as  open  to  the  vagrant  foot  as 
the  shelving  point  in  front  of  the  transverse 
one.  The  door  divides  the  island  into  two  un- 
equal parts,  a  lower  and  upper  ;  and  I  am  thus 
particular  in  detailing  the  circumstance,  as  it 
serves  to  show  on  what  slight  and  trivial  causes 
the  preservation  or  extinction  of  a  vegetable 
species  may  sometimes  depend.  The  sheep  are 
restricted  by  the  door  to  the  upper  division  of 
the  island  ;  while  two  comparatively  rare  plants 
indigenous  to  the  place — the  sea-beet  and  the 
Bass-mallow — are  found  in  only  its  lower  divi- 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  69 

sion.  The  same  door  which  protects  the  sheep 
from  the  lawless  depredator,  has  protected  the 
two  rare  plants  from  the  sheep  ;  and  so  they  con- 
tinue to  exist ;  while  in  several  other  islands 
of  the  Frith,  in  which  they  once  found  a  habi- 
tat, but  enjoyed  the  protection  of  no  jealous 
door,  they  exist  no  longer.  Even  in  the  Bass 
they  seem  to  be  in  considerable  danger,  from  the 
recent  introduction  of  a  colony  of  rabbits,  that 
have  already  made  themselves  free  of  both  the 
lower  and  upper  divisions  of  the  island,  and 
that,  by  scooping  the  soil  fromt under  the  mal- 
lows, and  by  nibbling  off  the  reproductive  ger- 
mins  of  the  beet,  have  of  late  very  sensibly 
diminished  the  numbers  of  both.  The  beet 
plants  in  especial  seemed  to  be  at  least  thrice 
more  numerous  when  I  formerly  visited  the 
place  than  I  found  them  now. 

The  rabbits,  however,  though  no  friends  to  the 
rare  plants,  nor  yet  to  the  ruins — for  with  their 
unsightly  excavations,  they  have  been  working 
sad  havoc  among  the  parapets  and  slimmer 
walls — did  me  some  service  as  a  sort  of  geolo- 
gical pioneers.  They  had  been  busily  at  work 
immediately  under  what  I  have  described  as  the 


70  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

longitudinal  wall  of  the  fortress,  where  the  tree 
mallow  grows  thick  and  tall  in  a  loose  grayish- 
colored  soil,  which  may  be  now  safely  describ- 
ed as  vegetable  mould,  but  which  existed  a 
century  and  a  half  ago  simply  as  the  debris  and 
exuviae  of  the  garrison.  And  their  excavations 
here,  from  two  to  four  feet  in  depth,  serve  to  lay 
open  to  the  visitor  a  formation  of  compara- 
tively recent  origin,  the  various  remains  of 
which,  animal  and  vegetable,  organic  and  ar- 
tistic, all  speak  of  man.  Thje  accumulation 
constitutes  suck  a  deposit  as  would  surely  be 
now  and  then  unveiled  by  the  explorer  of  the 
more  ancient  fossiliferous  beds,  had  there  ex- 
isted a  rational  tool-making  creature  in  the 
earlier  ages  of  creation ;  or  had  man,  as  some 
writers  fancy,  been  contemporary  with  all  the 
geologic  systems  in  succession. 

It  is  not  unusual  to  bestow  a  name  on  the 
subordinate  beds  of  larger  formations,  from  the 
more  characteristic  organisms  which  they  con- 
tain. We  have  thus  "  Coral  Rags,"  and  "  Ich- 
thyolitic  Beds,'7  and  "  Gryphite"  "  Encrinal," 
and  "  Pentamerous  Limestones  ;"  and  were  we, 
on  a  similar  principle  of  nomenclature,  to  be- 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  71 

stow  on  this  limited  formation  a  name  from  the 
prevalent  remains  which  it  exhibits,  we  would 
have  to  term  it  the  Tobacco-pipe  Deposit.  It 
abounds  in  the  decapitated  stalks  and  broken 
bowls  of  tobacco-pipes,  of  antique  form  and 
massy  proportions,  any  one  of  which  would  have 
furnished  materials  enough  for  the  construction 
of  two  such  pipes 

"As  smokers  smoke  in  these  degenerate  days." 

Assisted  by  my  companion,  I  picked  up  in  a 
few  minutes  the  bowls  of  five  of  these  memo- 
rials of  bygone  luxury,  and  the  stalks  of  about 
twice  as  many  more.  Some  of  the  stalks  at 
their  terminal  points  are  well  rounded,  as  if 
long  in  friendly  contact  with  the  teeth  ;  while 
their  lack  of  wax  or  varnish  shows  that  the  art 
of  glazing  for  an  inch  or  two,  to  protect  the 
lips  from  the  fretting  absorbescence  of  the  pipe- 
clay, had  yet  to  be  invented.  The  bowls  are 
all  broken  short  at  the  neck — evidence  that  the 
wasteful  practice  of  knocking  out  the  ashes,  not 
as  was  Uncle  Toby's  wont,  against  the  thumb- 
nail, but  against  a  hard  stone,  has  been  by  no 
means  confined  to  our  own  anti-economic  age ; 


72  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

and  most  of  them  still  bear  the  darkened  stain 
of  the  tobacco.  There  are  few  of  the  heads  of 
that  head-taking-off  century — not  excepting  the 
head  of  the  Royal  Martyr  himself — in  so  excel- 
lent a  state  of  keeping,  or  that  still  bear  about 
them  such  unequivocal  mark  of  what  had  most 
engaged  them  in  their  undetached  condition, 
whether  the  Virginian  weed,  unlimited  preroga- 
tive de  jure  divino^  or  the  Canterburian  cere- 
monies. The  deposit  in  which  they  occur,  lies 
parallel  to  and  immediately  in  front,  as  has  been 
said,  of  the  longitudinal  range  of  rampart,  along 
which  the  sentinels  must  have  paced  frequent 
and  oft,  humming,  during  the  midnight  watch, 
some  reckless  old-world  song — "  If  ere  I  do 
well  'tis  a  wonder,"  or,  "  Three  bottles  and  a 
quart" — and  consoling  themselves,  as  the  keen 
sea-breeze  whistled  sharp  and  shrill  through 
embrazure  and  shot-hole,  with  a  whiff  of  tobac- 
co. The  night  is  drizzly  and  chill ;  and  yonder, 
tall  in  the  fog,  may  be  seen  the  grimly-mous- 
tached,  triangular-capped,  buff-belted,  duffle-be- 
coated  scoundrel  of  a  sentry  pacing  along  the 
wall,  and  crooning  an  old  drinking-song  as  he 
goes.  One  pipe  is  already  smoked  out :  he 


GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS.  73 

stops,  and  firmly  holding  the  stalk  of  the  imple- 
ment at  the  neck,  he  taps  the  bowl  against  the 
edge  of  the  par  ape  t,  in  preparation  for  another. 
It  breaks  short  in  his  hand ;  and,  with  a  sudden 
oath,  that  forms  a  rather  abrupt  episode  in  the 
tune,  and  disturbs  poor  Mr.  Blackadder  in  his 
cell,  he  sends  the  bowl  a-whizzing  over  the  ram- 
part, and  the  stalk  straightway  follows  it.  And 
now,  after  a  hundred  and  eighty  years  have 
come  and  gone,  here  is  both  bowl  and  stalk  ! 
One  English  poet  has  written  verses  on  the  de- 
tached heel  of  an  old  shoe ;  another  on  a  re- 
jected quid  of  tobacco  divested  of  the  juice.  I 
do  not  see  why  a  mutilated  tobacco-pipe  of  the 
Bass  should  not  make  quite  as  good  a  subject 
as  either.  Their  abundance  here  seems  to  de- 
monstrate that  the  unscrupulous  soldiery  of  the 
times  of  Charles  II.  must  have  been  not  a  little 
remarkable  as  a  smoke-inhaling  fraternity ; 
while  the  fact  that  a  vicar  of  the  neighboring 
parish  of  Golyn  was  deposed  by  James  VI.  for 
the  high  crime  of  smoking  tobacco  about  half  a 
century  before,  shows  that  smoke-inhaling  could 
scarce  have  taken  rank,  in  the  time  of  James* 
grandson,  among  the  very  respectable  accom- 
4 


74 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 


plishments.  The  weed,  if  not  obnoxious  to  all 
the  anathemas  of  the  pedant  monarch's  "  Coun- 
terblast," must  have  still  been  the  subject  of  an 
appreciation  at  least  as  disparaging  as  that  of 
Lamb's  "  Farewell  :"— 

' c  Sooty  retainer  to  the  vine  ; 
Bacchus'  black  servant  negro,  fine  ; 
Sorcerer  that  mak'st  us  dote  upon 
Thy  begrimmed  complexion ; 
And,  for  thy  pernicious  sake, 
More  and  greater  oaths  to  break 
Than  reclaimed  lovers  take    *    *    * 
Stinkingest  of  the  stinking  kind  ; 
Filth  of  the  mouth,  and  fog  of  the  mind; 
Henbane,  nightshade,  both  together, 
Hemlock  aconite." 

With  the  broken  tobacco-pipes  I  found  nume- 
rous fragments  of  beef  and  mutton  bones,  that 
still  bore  mark  of  the  butcher's  saw,  blent  with 
the  frequent  bones  of  birds  and  fractured  shells 
of  the  edible  crab — memorials,  the  two  last,  of 
contributions  furnished  by  the  islet  itself  to  the 
wants  of  its  garrison  or  the  prisoners.  I  picked 
up,  besides,  a  little  bit  of  brass,  the  ornamental 
facing,  apparently,  of  some  piece  of  uniform, 
v/ith  several  bits  of  iron,  long  since  oxidized  out 
of  all  shape,  and  stuck  round  with  agglomera- 


GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS.  75 

tions  of  gravel  and  coal,  and  bits  of  decayed 
wood,  representative  to  the  young  geologist  of 
the  components  of  some  ancient  conglomerate 
of  the  Devonian  or  Carboniferous  period,  bound 
together  by  a  calcareous  or  metallic  cement. 
My  companion  found  glittering  among  the  debris, 
what  at  the  first  glance  seemed  to  be  a  cluster 
of  minute  well-formed  pearls  of  great  beauty 
and  brilliancy,  set  in  a  little  tablet ;  but  the 
jewel  turned  out,  on  examination,  to  be  merely 
the  fragment  of  some  highly -ornamented  apoth- 
ecary's phial,  embossed  into  semi-globular  studs, 
that  owed  all  their  iridescence  to  the  sorely  de- 
composed state  of  the  glass.  Glass  decomposes 
under  the  action  of  the  elements — like  many  of 
the  trap-rocks,  such  as  greenstone,  basalt,  and 
the  claystones — by  splitting  into  layers  parallel 
to  the  planes,  or,  as  in  this  instance,  to  the 
curves  of  the  original  mass  ;  and  the  plane  of 
each  layer,  under  the  same  optical  law  that  im 
parts  iridescence  to  minute  sheets  of  mica  par- 
tially raised  from  the  mass,  reflects  the  prismatic 
colors.  Hence  the  frequent  gorgeousness  of  old 
stable  and  outhouse  windows,  little  indebted  to 
the  art  of  the  stainer,  but  left  to  the  amateur 


76  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

pencillings  of  two  greatly  more  delicate  artists 
in  this  special  department— cobwebbed  neglect 
and  decomposing  damp.  When  examined  by 
the  microscope,  I  found  the  studs  of  the  Bass 
specimen  presenting  exactly  the  appearance  of 
— what  decomposing  balls  of  greenstone  have 
been  so  often  compared  to — many  coated  bulbous 
roots,  such  as  that  of  the  onion  or  lily.  In  green- 
stone the  disintegrating  substance  is  commonly 
iron  ;  in  glass  it  is  the  fixed  salt,  such  as  kelp 
or  barilla,  used  as  a  flux  in  fusing  the  stubborn 
silex  ;  and  the  concentric  disposition  affected  by 
both  substances  seems  to  be  in  part  a  conse- 
quence of  the  homogeneity  induced  in  the  mass 
by  the  previous  fusion,  through  which  the  main 
agent  in  the  decomposition,  whether  moisture 
or  air,  is  permitted  to  act  equally  all  round  at 
equal  depths  from  the  surface — a  process  with 
which  the  disturbing  lines  of  stratification  in  a 
sedimentary  mass  would  scarce  fail  to  interfere. 
I  saw  a  large  cannon-shot,  of  rude  form,  and 
much  encased  in  rust,  which  had  been  laid  bare 
by  the  rabbits  in  this  curious  deposit  a  few 
weeks  before.  It  had  lain  sunk  in  the  debris  to 
the  depth  of  about  four  feet,  immediately  under 


GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS.  77 

a  partial  breach  in  the  masonry  where  the 
fortress  had  been  battered  from  the  sea ;  and  it 
had  not  improbably  dealt  it  a  severe  blow  in  the 
quarrel  of  William  of  Nassau.  But  what  I 
deemed  perhaps  the  most  curious  remains  in  the 
heap  were  numerous  splinters  of  black  English 
flint,  that  exactly  resembled  the  rejectamenta 
of  a  gun-flint  maker's  shop.  In  digging  on,  to 
ascertain,  if  possible,  for  what  purpose  chips  of 
black  flint  could  have  been  brought  to  the  Bass, 
my  companion  disinterred  a  rude  gun-flint — ex- 
actly such  a  thing  as  I  have  seen  a  poverty- 
stricken  north-country  poacher  chip  at  his 
leisure,  for  his  fowling-piece,  out  of  a  mass  of 
agate  or  jasper.  The  matchlock  had  yielded  its 
place  only  a  short  time  before  to  the  spring  lock 
with  its  hammer  and  flint ;  but  a  minute  subdi- 
vision of  labor  had  not  as  yet,  it  would  seem, 
separated  the  art  of  the  gun-flint  maker  into  a 
distinct  profession ;  and  so,  during  their  leisure 
hours  on  the  ramparts,  the  soldiers  of  the  gar- 
rison had  been  in  the  practice  of  fashioning  their 
flints  for  themselves,  and  of  pitching  the  chips, 
with  now  and  then  an  occasional  abortion,  such 
as  the  one  we  had  just  picked  up,  over  the  walls. 


78  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

There  was  laid  open  a  good  many  years  since, 
among  the  sand-hills  of  Findhorn,  on  the  coast 
of  Moray,  the  debris  of  a  somewhat  similar 
species  of  flint-work,  blent,  as  in  this  instance, 
with  a  few  of  the  half-finished  implements  that 
had  been  marred  in  the  making ;  but  the  northern 
flint  manufactory  had  belonged  to  a  greatly  more 
ancient  period  than  that  of  the  musket  or  its 
spring  lock.  The  half-finished  implements  found 
among  the  sand-hills  were  the  flint-heads  of 
arrows. 

My  description  of  the  time-wasted  remains 
of  this  little  patch  may  be  perhaps  deemed  too 
minute.  I  am  desirous,  however,  for  the  spe- 
cial benefit  of  the '  uninitiated,  to  exhibit — de- 
duced from  a  few  familiar  objects — the  sort  of 
circumstantial  evidence  on  which,  drawn  from 
objects  greatly  less  familiar,  the  geologist 
founds  no  inconsiderable  proportion  of  his  con- 
clusions. He  is  much  a  reasoner  in  the  infer- 
ential style,  and  expatiates  largely  on  the  de- 
ductive and  the  circumstantial.  It  is,  besides, 
not  unimportant  to  note  that,  wherever  man  has 
been  long  a  dweller,  he  has  left  enduring  traces 
behind  him — indubitable  marks  of  his  design- 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  79 

ing  capacity,  stamped  upon  metal  or  stone, 
stained  into  glass  or  earthenware,  or  baked  into 
brick.  In  sa/untering  along  the  shore,  on  either 
side  of  the  Frith  of  Forth,  one  may  know  when 
one  is  passing  the  older  towns — such  as  Leith, 
Musselburgh,  or  Prestonpans — without  once 
raising  an  eye  to  mark  the  dwellings,  simply 
by  observing  the  altered  appearance  of  the 
beach.  Among  the  ordinary  water-rolled  peb 
bles,  composed  mostly  of  the  trap  and  sandstone 
rocks  of  the  district,  there  occur,  in  great  abun- 
dance, in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  the 
houses,  fragments  of  brick  and  tile,  broken  bits 
of  pottery,  pieces  of  fractured  bottles  and  win- 
dow-panes, and  the  scoria  of  glass-houses,  iron- 
furnaces  and  gas-works.  And  certainly  few  of 
these  remains  can  be  deemed  less  fitted  to  con- 
tend, through  greatly  extended  periods,  v/ith 
time  and  the  decomposing  elements,  than  the 
fish  and  ferns,  the  delicate  shells  and  minute 
coral-lines,  of  the  earlier  geologic  systems. 
Dr.  Keith  found  the  fluted  columns  and  sculp- 
tured capitals  of  the  ancient  cities  of  the  Holy 
Land  as  fresh  and  unworn  as  if  they  had  pass- 
ed from  under  the  tool  but  yesterday  ;  and  he 


80  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

recognised  in  the  enormous  accumulations  of 
hewn  stone,  which  in  some  localities  load  the 
surface  far  as  the  eye  can  reach,  the  ready- 
made  materials  with  which,  almost  without 
sound  of  hammer  or  of  saw,  as  during  the  erec- 
tion of  the  temple  of  old,  the  dwellings  of  re- 
stored Judah  may  yet  be  built.  The  burnt 
bricks  that  coated  the  Birs  Nemroud,  probably 
the  oldest  ruin  in  the  world,  still  retain,  as 
sharply  as  when  they  were  removed  from  the 
kiln  in  the  days  of  the  earlier  Babylonian  mo- 
narchs,  their  mysterious  inscriptions  ; — the 
polished  granite  of  the  sarcophagus  of  Cheops 
has  not  resigned,  in  the  lapse  of  three  thousand 
years,  a  single  hieroglyphic.  I  have  been  told 
by  a  relative  who  fought  in  Egypt  under  Aber- 
cromby,  that  the  soldiery,  in  digging  one  of 
their  wells,  passed  for  some  eight  or  ten  feet 
through  the  debris  of  an  ancient  pottery,  and 
that  even  the  fragments  at  the  bottom  of  the 
heap — mayhap  the  accumulated  breakage  of 
centuries,  in  a  manufactory  of  the  times 
of  Cleopatra  or  the  Ptolemies — retained  their 
bits  of  pattern  as  freshly  as  if  they  had  been 
moulded  and  broken  scarce  a  month  before.  If, 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  81 

in  all  the  earlier  geologic  formations,  from  the 
Silurian  to  the  Tertiary  inclusive,  we  find  no 
trace  of  a  rational  being  possessed  of  such  a 
control  over  inert  matter  as  the  idea  of  rational- 
ity necessarily  involves,  the  antiquities  of  the 
older  historic  nations,  and  even  the  debris  and 
rubbish  of  the  more  ancient  towns  of  our  own 
country,  serve  to  show  that  it  is  not  because  the 
memorials  of  such  a  being  would  be  either  so 
few  as  to  escape  notice,  or  so  fragile  as  to  defy 
preservation.  No  sooner  does  a  man  appear 
upon  the  scene  as  the  last  born  of  creation, 
than — in  that  upper  stratum  of  the  earth's 
crust  which  represents  what  geologists  term 
the  recent  period — we  find  abundant  trace  of 
him ;  and  deeply  interesting,  when  presented 
in  the  geologic  form,  some  of  the  more  ancient 
of  these  traces  are. 

The  recent  deposit  of  the  Bass  is  charged, 
as  has  been  said,  with  numerous  detached  bones, 
mutilated  iSy  the  butcher's  saw.  One  of  the 
most  ancient  fossils  that  testifies  to  the  exist- 
ence of  man  does  so  in  a  somewhat  similar  man- 
ner. It  exhibits  him  as  vested  in  an  ability, 
possessed  by  none  of  the  other  carnivora,  of  fa- 
4* 


82  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

cilitating  the  gratification  of  his  appetites,  or 
the  supply  of  his  wants,  by  the  employment  of 
cunningly-fashioned  weapons  of  his  own  fabri- 
cation and  design.  In  the  upper  drift  of  the 
province  of  Scania  in  Sweden  there  occur  nu-~ 
merous  bones  of  a  gigantic  animal  of  the  ox 
family ;  and  on  the  skeleton  of  one  of  these, 
singular  for  its  degree  of  entireness,  an  ancient 
hunter  of  the  country  seems  to  have  left  his 
mark.  "  A  skeleton  of  the  Bos  Urus,  or  Bos 
primigenius"  says  Sir  Roderick  Murchison, 
in  his  admirable  paper  on  the  Scandinavian 
Drift,  "  was  extracted  by  Professor  Nilsson 
from  beneath  ten  feet  of  peat,  near  Ystadt,  the 
horns  of  the  animal  having  been  found  deeply 
buried  in  the  subjacent  blue  clay  on  which  the 
bog  has  accumulated.  This  specimen  is  not 
only  most  remarkable,  as  being  the  only  entire 
skeleton  yet  found  of  an  animal  whose  bones 
occur  in  the  ancient  drift  of  the  diluvium  of 
many  countries  of  Europe,  as  well  as  in  Siberia 
(where  it  is  the  associate  of  the  Mammoth  and 
the  Rhinoceros  tichorhinus\  but  also  as  exhi- 
biting upon  the  vertebral  column  a  perforation 
which  Nilsson  has  no  doubt  was  inflicted  by  the 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  83 

stone -head  of  a  javelin  thrown  by  one  of  the 
aboriginal  human  inhabitants  of  Scania.  By 
whatever  instrument  inflicted,  this  wound  has 
its  longest  orifice  on  the  anterior  face  of  the 
first  lumbar  vertebra,  and  diminishing  gradual- 
ly in  size,  has  penetrated  the  second  lumbar 
vertebra,  and  has  even  slightly  injured  the 
third.  Occupying  himself  for  many  years  in 
collecting  all  the  utensils  of  the  aborigines  of 
his  country,  and  in  studying  their  uses,  Profes- 
sor Nilsson  shows  that  the  orifice  in  the  ver- 
tebra of  the  specimen  of  Bos  primigenius  in 
question  is  so  exactly  fitted  by  one  of  the  stone- 
headed  javelins  found  in  the  neighborhood,  that 
no  reasonable  doubt  can  be  entertained  that  the 
wound  was  inflicted  by  a  human  being.  He 
does  not  think  that  the  wound  was  mortal,  but 
on  the  contrary,  he  indicates,  from  the  manner 
in  which  the  bone  seems  afterwards  to  have  ce- 
mented, that  the  creature  lived  two  or  three 
years  after  the  infliction  of  a  wound  produced 
by  the  hurling  of  a  javelin  horizontally  in  the 
direction  of  the  head,  but  which,  missing  the 
head,  passed  between  the  horns,  and  impinged 
on  this  projecting  portion  of  the  back  " 


84  GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS. 

I  insist  rather  on  the  permanency  of  the 
works  of  men  than  on  that  of  the  frame-wort 
of  their  bodies — rather  on  the  broadly-marked 
traces  which  former  generations  have  left  be- 
hind them,  in  the  ruins  and  debris  of  the  ex- 
tinct nations,  than  on  the  scarce  less  perfectly 
preserved  human  remains  of  ancient  catacombs 
and  sepulchres  ;  and  I  do  so  chiefly  in  reference 
to  a  strange  suggestion — not  greatly  insisted 
upon  in  these  days,  but  not  without  its  portion 
of  plausibility,  and  peculiarly  adapted  to  appeal 
to  the  imagination.  It  at  least  addressed  itself 
very  powerfully  to  mine,  when  first  brought  ac- 
quainted with  it,  many  years  ago,  by  a  friend 
then  studying  at  the  University.  I  had  already 
begun  to  form  my  collection  of  Liasic  fossils, 
and — much  struck  by  the  strangeness  of  their 
forms — was  patiently  waiting  for  some  light  re- 
specting them,  when  my  friend,  who  had  seen 
a  good  many  such  in  the  College  Museum,  and 
had  just  returned  home  from  his  first  year's 
course,  informed  me  that  they  were  regarded  as 
belonging  to  a  by-gone  creation,  of  which  not  so 
much  as  a  single  plant  or  animal  continued  to 
exist.  Nay,  he  had  even  heard  it  urged  as  not 


GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS.  85 

improbable,  that  the  ancient  world  in  which 
they  had  flourished  and  decayed — a  world 
greatly  older  than  that  beyond  the  Flood — had 
been  tenanted  by  rational,  responsible  beings, 
for  whom,  as  for  the  race  to  which  we  ourselves 
belong,  a  resurrection  and  a  day  of  final  judg- 
ment had  awaited.  But  many  thousands  of 
t  years  had  elapsed  since  that  day — emphatically 
the  last  to  the  pre- Adamite  race,  for  whom  it 
was  appointed — had  come  and  gone.  Of  all  the 
accountable  creatures  that  had  been  summoned 
to  its  bar,  bone  had  been  gathered  to  its  bone, 
so  that  not  a  vestige  of  the  framework  of  their 
bodies  occurred  in  the  rocks  or  soils  in  which 
they  had  been  originally  inhumed  ;  and,  in  con- 
sequence, only  the  remains  of  their  irresponsi- 
ble contemporaries,  the  inferior  animals,  and 
those  of  the  vegetable  productions  of  their  fields 
and  forests,  were  now  to  be  found.  How 
strange  the  conception  !  It  filled  my  imagina- 
tion for  a  time  with  visions  of  the  remote  past 
instinct  with  a  wild  poetry,  borrowed  in  part 
from  such  conceptions-of  the  pre-Adamite  kings, 
and  the  semi-material  intelligences,  their  con- 
temporaries, as  one  finds  in  Beckford's  "  Va- 


86  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

theck,"  or  Moore's  "  Loves  of  the  Angels  ;"  and 
invested  my  fossil  lignites  and  shells,  through 
the  influence  of  the  associative  faculty,  with  an 
obscure  and  terrible  sublimity,  that  filled  the 
whole  mind.  But  there  is  not  even  a  shadow 
of  foundation  for  a  conception  so  wild  :  on  the 
contrary,  the  geologic  evidence,  whether  pri- 
mary and  direct,  or  derivative  and  analogical, 
militates  full  against  it. 

I  say  derivative  and  analogical,  as  certainly 
as  primary  and  direct.  The  rational,  account- 
able creature  of  the  present  scene  of  things 
stands  in  his  proper  place  on  the  apex  of  mate- 
rial animated  being  ;  he  forms  the  terminal 
point  of  that  pyramid,  the  condition  of  all  whose 
components  is  vitality  breathed  into  dust.  At 
the  ample  base  we  recognise  the  lower  forms  of 
life — shells,  crustaceans,  and  zoophytes  ;  a  little 
higher  up  we  find  the  vast  family  of  the  verte- 
brate inhabitants  of  the  waters — fish;  still 
higher  up  we  see  a  distinct  stage  in  the  ascent 
occupied  by  birds  and  reptiles  ;  still  higher  up 
are  ranged  those  important  families  of  the  mam- 
miferous  quadrupeds,  described  in  Scripture  as 
the  "  beasts  of  the  field ;"  and  then,  supreme 


GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS.  87 


over  all,  and  pointing  to  heaven,  we  mark  on 
the  cloud-enveloped  summit  of  the  pyramid, 
reasoning,  responsible  man.  How  incomplete 
would  not  the  edifice  seem — a  mere  unfinished 
frustrum — were  the  intermediate  tiers  to  be 
struck  away,  and  man  to  be  placed  in  immedi- 
ate juxtaposition  with  a  fish  !  Such,  however, 
would  be  the  place  and  relations  of  a  rational, 
accountable  being,  during  the  vast  divisions  of 
the  Palaeozoic  period.  Or  how  incomplete  even 
would  not  the  edifice  seem,  were  but  the  second 
tier — that  comprising  the  beasts  of  the  field — 
to  be  struck  away,  and  man  to  be  placed  in  im- 
mediate juxtaposition  with  the  bird  and  the 
reptile  !  And  yet  such  would  be  the  place  and 
relations  of  a  rational,  accountable  being,  during 
the  vast  divisions  of  the  Secondary  period.  It 
is  not  merely  on  the  palpable  incompleteness 
of  the  chain  in  either  case,  or  on  the  enormous 
width  of  its  gaps,  that  we  would  have  to  insist, 
but  also  on  the  positive  helplessness  of  a  ra- 
tional creature  so  circumstanced.  The  moral 
agent  of  such  a  world  would  be  the  unheeded 
monarch  of  an  ungovernable  canaille ;  and, 
lacking  the  higher  order  of  subjects,  from  which 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 


alone  his  servants  and  ministers  could  be  se- 
lected, lie  would  lack  also,  in  consequence,  any 
profitable  command  over  the  lower.  The  mighty 
armies  which  he  would  be  called  on  to  command 
would,  from  the  lack  of  subordinate  officers,  be 
mere  mutinous  mobs,  with  which  no  combined 
movement  could  be  accomplished,  or  general 
achievement  performed.  The  earth,  as  it  ex- 
isted in  these  earlier  periods,  could  have  been 
no  home  for  man  ;  and  with  this  conclusion  the 
direct  findings  of  the  geologic  record  thoroughly 
agree.  In  the  Palaeozoic,  the  Secondary,  and 
the  earlier  Tertiary  formations,  we  discover  no 
trace  whatever  of  a  reasoning  creature,  who 
could  stamp  the  impress  of  his  mind  on  inert 
matter.  Ancient  as  is  the  earth  which  we  in- 
habit, we  seem  to  be  in  but  the  first  beginnings 
of  the  moral  government  of  God. 

I  can,  of  course,  refer  to  the  divine  govern- 
ment here  in  but  its  relation  to  agents,  pos- 
sessed, like  man,  of  bocly  as  certainly  as  of 
spirit,  for  of  none  other  can  matter  furnish  any 
recognisable  trace.  In  vain,  from  any  existing 
data,  may  we  attempt  to  assign  era  or  epocha, 
amid  the  revolutions  of  the  bygone  eternity,  to 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  89 

that  revolt  of  the  unembodied  powers  of  evil 
which 

"  Raised  impious  war  in  Heaven,  and  battle  proud." 

It  may  have  been  contemporary  with  some  of  the 
later  geologic  formations  in  our  own  earth  ;  or 
it  may  have  taken  place,  according  to  Milton, 
when 

"  As  yet  this  world  was  not,  and  Chaos  wild 

lleigned  where  these  heavens  now  roll — where  earth  now 

rests, 
Upon  her  centre  poised." 

Or  it  may  have  arisen  as  a  Cloud  in  the  Palaeo- 
zoic dawn  of  creation,  to  darken  with  its  sha- 
dow every  after  scene  of  existence  in  all  the  suc- 
ceeding creations — those  scenes  in  which  the 
fierce  Sauroid  fish  battled  with  his  cogeners,  or 
the  gigantic  Saurian  with  his  kindred  reptiles, 
or  the  enormous  Mammal  with  his  weaker 
brethren  of  the  plain  or  forest.  It  may  have 
exerted  a  malign  influence  on  the  pre- Adam- 
ite ages  of  suffering,  violence,  and  death,  just  as 
the  sin  of  the  human  species  now  exerts  a  malign 
influence  on  the  condition  of  those  unoffending 
animals  contemporary  with  man,  that  groan  and 
suffer  because  of  human  offence.  We  know  re- 


90  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

garding  neither  the  era  nor  the  influence  of  the 
earlier  event,  for  on  these  points  the  voice  of 
inspiration  is  mute ;  but  God's  moral  govern- 
ment, in  its  relation  to  at  least  embodied  and 
material  agents,  is  but  of  late  origin — a  thing 
of  but  the  passing  ages  of  our  planet ;  and  for 
the  staying  of  the  great  plague,  so  recently 
broken  out,  the  decease  at  Jerusalem  has  already 
been  accomplished.  And  who  shall  dare  limit 
the  circle  of  worlds  to  which  the  influence  of 
that  decease  is  destined  to  extend  ?  Many  a 
great  kingdom  has*  been  gladdened  by  the  beam 
which  broke  from  the  little  hill  of  Calvary — why 
may  not  many  a  great  planet  be  cheered  Tby  the 
same  beam  transmitted  from  the  little  world  in 
which  the  little  hill  is  included  ? 

The  walls  of  the  stronghold  of  the  Bass,  with 
the  exception  of  a  few  rybats  and  lintels,  formed 
of  a  light  red  or  pale  sandstone  brought  from 
the  shore,  are  built  of  stone  quarried  from  the 
rock  on  which  it  stands.  The  stone,  originally 
of  a  dingy  olive-green  color,  like  so  many  other 
rocks  of  the  trap  family,  exhibits,  wherever  ex- 
posed to  the  weather,  a  deep  tinge  of  chocolate- 
browna — the  effect,  apparently,  of  a  slight  ad- 


GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS.     '  91 

mixture  of  iron.  In  the  line  of  rock  which 
flanks  on  the  right  the  narrow  passage  that 
runs  between  the  outer  and  inner  gateway,  I 
detected  several  minute  veins  of  this  widely- 
diftused  metal  existing  as  compact  red  iron- 
stone, brown  in  the  mass,  but  of  a  deep  red 
color  in  the  streak.  A  similar  species  of  iron 
ore,  found  in  considerable  abundance  in  various 
parts  of  the  Highlands,  is  employed  by  shep- 
herds, under  the  name  of  keel,  as  a  pigment  for 
marking  their  sheep,  and  yields  a  stain  which, 
from  its  metallic  character,  is  not  easily  eifacea- 
ble.  The  trap  of  the  Bass  has  been  described 
by  a  celebrated  Continental  geologist,  M.  A. 
Boue,  as  a  compact  clinkstone ;  by  Mr.  James 
Nicol3  in  his  "  Guide  to  the  Geology  of  Scot- 
land,'5 as  a  "  fine  granular  greenstone  or  clink- 
stone." I  may  be  permitted  to  remark,  for  the 
benefit  of  the  uninitiated,  that  the  hard  splintery 
trap-rock  on  which  the  Castle  of  Edinburgh 
stands  is  a  clinkstone  ;  while  the  trap-rock  of 
lighter  color  and  larger  grain,  which  forms  the 
noble  range  of  trap  precipices  that  sweep  along 
the  brow  of  Salisbury  Crags,  is  a  greenstone. 
The  trap  of  the  Bass  seems  to  be  of  an  interme- 


92  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 


diate  hybrid  species  ;  several  of  the  fragments 
which  I  detached  from  the  rocks  in  the  imme- 
diate neighborhood  of  the  landing-place — con- 
choidal  in  their  fracture,  and  sprinkled  over 
with  minute  needle-like  chrystals  of  feldspar, 
that  sparkle  in  a  homogeneous  base — partake 
more  of  the  nature  of  clinkstone ;  while  in  the 
upper  and  middle  walks  of  the  island,  where  the 
stone  is  less  conchoidal,  and  both  more  persist- 
ently granular,  and  the  grains  considerably 
larger,  it  partakes  more  of  the  greenstone  char- 
acter. But  the  entire  mass,  whatever  its  minuter 
diiferences,  is  evidently  one  in  its  components, 
and  was  all  consolidated  under  the  refrigerating 
influences,  at  some  points  perhaps  more,  at 
others  less  slowly,  but  in  exactly  the  same  set 
of  circumstances.  It  may  be  mentioned,  how- 
ever, in  the  passing,  that  none  of  the  detached 
fragments  exhibit  the  peculiar  globular  structure 
so  frequently  shown  in  weathering  by  the  green- 
stone family  ;  nor,  indeed,  do  we  find  among  the 
precipices  of  the  island,  save  in  the  lime  of  the 
cave,  marks  of  weathering  of  any  kind.  The 
angles  stand  out  as  sharp  and  unworn  as  if  they 
had  been  first  exposed  to  the  atmosphere  but 


GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS.  93 

yesterday  ;  and  to  this  principle  of  indestructi- 
bility, possessed  in  a  high  degree  by  all  the 
harder  clinkstones,  does  the  entire  island  owe 
its  preservation,  in  its  imposing  proportions  and 
singular  boldness  of  outline.  Had  it  been  origi- 
nally composed  of  such  a  yielding  tuff  as  that  on 
which  the  fortress  of  Tantallan  is  erected,  we 
would  now  in  vain  seek  its  place  amid  the  waters, 
or  would  find  it  indicated  merely  by  some  low 
skerry,  dangerous  to  the  mariner  at  the  fall  of 
the  tide. 

The  sloping  acclivity  of  the  Bass  consists,  as 
has  been  said,  of  three  great  steps  or  terraces, 
with  steep  belts  of  precipice  rising  between; 
and  of  these  terraces,  the  lowest  is  occupied,  as 
has  been  already  shown,  by  the  fortress,  and 
furnishes,  where  it  sinks  slopingly  towards  the 
sea  on  the  south-east,  the  two  landing-places  of 
the  island.  The  middle  terrace,  situated  exact- 
ly over  the  cave,  and  owing  its  origin  apparent- 
ly to  the  operations  of  the  denuding  agencies, 
directed  on  the  same  great  fissure  out  of  which 
the  perforation  has  been  scooped,  has  furnished 
the  site  of  the  ancient  chapel  of  the  island ; 
while  the  upper  and  largest  terrace,  lying  but 


94  GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS. 

a  single  stage  beneath  the  summit  of  the  rock, 
we  find  laid  out  into  a  levelled  rectangular  in- 
closure,  once  a  garden. 

The  chapel,  though  history  has  failed  to  note 
the  date  of  its  erection,  bears  unequivocal  marks 
of  being  the  oldest  building  on  the  island.  A 
few  sandstone  rybats  line  one  of  the  sides  of  the 
door  ;  and  there  is  a  sandstone  trough  within 
which  may  have  once  contained  the  holy  water  ; 
but  these  merely  indicate  a  comparatively  re- 
cent reparation  of  the  edifice — probably  not 
long  anterior  in  date  to  the  times  of  the  Refor- 
mation. The  older  hewn  work  of  the  erection 
is  wrought,  not  in  sandstone,  but  in  a  character- 
istic well-marked  claystone  porphyry,  occasion- 
ally seamed  by  minute  veins  of  dull  red  jasper, 
which  is  still  quarried  for  the  purposes  of  the 
builder  in  the  neighborhood  of  Dirlton.  Like 
most  of  the  porphyries,  it  is  a  durable  stone ; 
but  in  this  exposed  locality  the  wear  of  many 
ages  has  told  even  on  it,  and  it  presents  on  the 
planes,  once  smoothed  by  the  tool,  a  deeply  fret- 
ted surface.  The  compact  earthy  base  has 
slowly  yielded  to  the  weathering  influences,  and 
the  embedded  crystals  stand  out  over  it  in  bold 


GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS.  95 

relief.  The  masonry,  too,  of  the  walls  and 
gables  speaks,  like  the  wasted  porphyry,  of  a 
remote  age.  In  the  rubble  work  of  the  fortress 
below,  though  sufficiently  rude,  we  invariably 
find  two  simple  rules  respected,  an  attention  to 
which  distinguishes,  in  the  eye  of  the  initiated, 
the  work  of  the  bred  mason  of  at  least  the  last 
four  centuries,  from  that  of  the  untaught  diker 
or  cowan  of  the  same  period.  The  stones  are 
placed  invariably  on  their  larger,  not  their  less- 
er beds  ;  and  each,  though  laid  irregularly  with 
respect  to  its  neighbors,  ranges  level  on  at 
least  its  own  bed.  A  ruler  laid  parallel  to  the 
line  in  which  it  rests  would  be  found  to  lie  pa- 
rallel to  the  line  of  the  horizon  also  ;  but  in  the 
rubble  work  of  the  chapel  above,  we  find  no  such 
laws  respected.  The  workmen  by  whom  it  was 
built,  like  the  old  Cyclopean  builders  of  Sicily 
and  Etruria,  or  the  untaught  burghers  of  Edin- 
burgh, who  turned  out  en  masse  to  raise  their 
city-wall  in  troublous  times,  had  them  not  in 
their  mind.  And  the  characteristic  is  a  very 
general  one  of  the  mason-work  of  our  older  and 
ruder  chapels — our  Culdee  chapels,  as  I  may 
perhaps  venture  to  term  them.  The  stones  rest 


96  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

on  whatever  beds  chanced  to  fit,  or  in  whatever 
angle  best  suited  the  lie  of  the  course  immedi- 
ately below. 

The  garden,  surrounded  by  a  ruinous  wall, 
and  a  broad  fringe  of  nettles,  occupies,  as  has 
been  said,  the  upper  terrace  of  the  island. 
When  I  had  last  seen  it  in  the  genial  month  of 
June,  1842,  it  bore,  among  the  long  rank  grass 
that  marks  the  richness  of  its  soil,  its  delicate 
sprinkling  of  "garden  flowers  grown  wild;" 
but  the  pleasant  "  cherry  trees,  of  the  fruit  of 
which"  Mr.  Eraser  of  Brea  "several  times 
tasted,"  were  no  longer  to  be  seen  ;  and  now, 
overborne  by  the  wintry  influences,  the  flowers 
themselves  had  disappeared,  and  the  area  lay 
covered  with  a  sallow  carpeting  of  withered 
herbage.  What  is  termed  the  well — a  deep 
square  excavation  near  the  middle  of  the  inclos- 
ure — I  found  full  to  overflowing  with,  a  brown 
turbid  fluid,  which  gave  ^honest  information  to 
the  organs  of  smell  that  it  was  neither  neces- 
sary nor  advisable  to  consult  regarding  it  those 
of  taste.  It  had  proved,  I  was  informed  by  the 
boatmen,  the  grave  of  a  hapless  sheep  during 
one  of  the  snow  storms  of  last  winter  ;  and  a 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  97 

cold  infusion  of  undressed  mutton — for  the  ani- 
mal had  been  left  to  decay  where  it  had  fallen — 
would  form,  I  am  afraid,  but  tolerable  drinking, 
even  with  the  benefit  of  the  finest  of  water  as  a 
menstruum.  The  water  of  the  Bass,  however — 
and  I  saw  considerable  accumulations  of  it  in 
two  other  receptacles — must  be  bad  when  at 
the  best.  Mr.  Eraser  complains,  in  his  Memoir, 
that  in  the  winter  time,  when  communication 
between  the  island  and  the  mainland  was  cut 
off  by  the  surf,  the  prisoners  had  not  unfre- 
quently,  for  lack  of  better,  to  drink  "  corrupted 
water,  sprinkled  over  with  a  little  oatmeal." 
The  frequent  rains — for  there  is  no  true  spring 
in  the  island — in  soaking  downwards  through 
the  rich  soil,  fattened  during  a  long  series  of 
years  by  the  dung  dropped  on  it  by  the  birds, 
becomes  a  sort  of  dilute  tincture  of  guano — 
which,  however  fitted  for  the  support  of  vegeta- 
ble existence,  must  be  but  little  conducive  to 
the  welfare  of  animal  life.  And  hence  one 
of  the  characteristics  indicated  by  the  laird  of 
Brea  : — the  Bass  water  is  "  corrupted  water." 

A  pyramid  of  loose  stones — the  work  of  some 
of  the  troops  engaged  in  the  great  ordnance 


98  GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS. 

•  survey — occupies  the  apex  of  the  island.  One 
is  sometimes  inclined  to  regret  that  these  con- 
spicuous mementoes  of  an  important  national 
undertaking,  which  in  the  remoter  and  wilder 
regions  of  our  country  furnish  so  many  central 
resting  points,  from  which  the  eye — to  employ 
a  phrase  of  Shenstone's — "lets  itself  out  on  the 
surrounding  landscape,"  should  be  of  so  tempora- 
ry a  character.  Placed,  as  most  of  them  are,  far 
'out  of  reach  of  the  levelling  plough  and  harrow, 
and  of  the  covetous  dike-builder,  they  would 
form,  were  they  but  constructed  of  stone  and 
run  lime,  connecting  links  between  the  present 
and  remotely  future  generations,  that  would 
le  at  least  more  honorable  to  the  age  of  their 
erection  than  monuments  raised  to  commem- 
orate the  ferocities  of  barbarous  clan  battles,  or 
the  doubtful  virtues  of  convenient  statesmen, 
who  got  places  for  their  dependents.  They 
might  have  their  little  tablets,  too,  commemora- 
tive, like  those  of  the  old  Roman  wall,  of  the 
laborious  "  vexillarii "  who  had  erected  them, 
and  usefully  illustrative,  besides,  of  the  compar- 
ative powers,  in  resisting  disintegration,  of  the 
various  serpentines,  marbles,  granites,  and 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  99 


sandstones  of  the  country.  The  stony  sentinel 
of  the  Bass — for  sentinel,  at  a  little  distance, 
it  seems — occupies,  like  many  of  its  fellows 
over  Scotland,  what  in  the  winter  nights  must 
be  a  supremely  drear  and  lonely  watching  sta- 
tion— quite  the  sort  of  place  for  the  ghost  of 
some  old  persecuting  prison-captain  to  take  its 
stand,  what  time  the  midnight  moon  looks  out 
through  rack  and  spray,  and  the  shadow  of  the 
old  chapel  falls  deep  and  black  athwart  the 
sward.  The  island  must  have  been  less  solitary 
a-nights  than  now,  during  at  least  the  summer 
season,  some  sixty  years  ago,  when,  according 
to  an  account  by  Alexander  Wilson,  the  well- 
known  literary  pedlar,  the  climbers  resided  per- 
manently on  the  rock  at  breeding  time,  "  in  a 
little  hut,  in  which  liquor  and  bread  and  cheese 
were  sold"  for  the  "accommodation  of  chance 
visitors,  and  of  the  sportsmen  who  frequented 
the  place  for  the  diversion  of  shooting."  Wil- 
son, laden  with  pieces  of  muslin  and  of  verse, 
and  with  the  prospectus  of  his  first  publication 
in  his  pocket,  journeyed  along  the  coast  in  the 
autumn  of  1789,  to  make  a  "  bold  push,"  as  he 
somewhat  quaintly  informs  the  reader  in  his 


100  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

journal,  "for  the  united  interest  of  pack  and 
poems" — recording  each  night  the  observations 
and  occurrences  of  the  day.  He  had  visited 
Canty — or,  as  he  writes  the  word,  Comly — 
Bay,  where  then,  as  now,  "  a  few  solitary  fishers 
lived  ;"  and  was  much  struck  by  the  appear- 
ance of  the  Bass — "  a  large  rock,"  he  says, 
"  rising  out  of  the  sea  to  the  dreadful  height  of 
six  hundred  feet,  giving  the  spectator  an  awful 
idea  of  its  Almighty  Founder,  who  weigheth  the 
mountains  in  scales  and  hills  in  a  balance — 
who  by  one  word  raised  into  existence  this  vast 
universe,  with  all  these  unwieldy  rocks — and 
who  will,  when  his  Almighty  goodness  shall 
think  fit,  with  one  word  command  them  to  their 
primitive  nothing."  But  though  he  eagerly 
transferred  to  his  journal  all  the  information 
regarding  the  rock  which  he  succeeded  in  collect- 
ing, he  was  unable,  it  would  seem,  to  visit  it ; 
times  were  hard ;  and  his  list,  both  of  sales  and 
subscribers,  low. 

"  The  poor  pedlar  failed  to  be  favored  with  sale, 
And  they  did  not  encourage  the  poet." 

Wilson  pointedly  refers,  in  his  journal,  to  the 
"prodigious  number  of  solan  geese  that  build 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  101 

among  the  cliffs  of  the  rock."  With  what  feel- 
ings, as  he  lay  on  the  green  bank  ashore,  did  he 
survey  the  flocks  wheeling  and  screaming 
around  it,  thick  as  midges  over  a  woodland  pool 
in  midsummer — now  gleaming  bright  in  the  dis- 
tance, as  they  presented  their  white  backs  to 
the  sun — anon  disappearing  for  a  moment,  as 
they  wheeled  in  airy  evolution,  and  the  shaded 
edges  of  their  wings  turned  to  the  spectator  ! 
Did  the  pulses  of  the  incipient  Ornithologist 
beat  any  the  quicker  as  he  gazed  on  the  living 
cloud  ?  or  did  there  arise  within  him  a  presenti- 
ment— a  sort  of  first  glimmer — of  the  happy 
enthusiasm  which  at  an  after  period  pervaded 
his  whole  mind,  when,  week  after  week,  he  lived 
in  the  wild  forests  of  the  West,  or  swept  in  his 
canoe  over  the  breasts  of  mighty  rivers  for  hun- 
dreds of  miles,  marking  every  beauty  of  form, 
every  variety  of  note,  every  peculiarity  of  in- 
stinct, vested  in  the  feathered  creation,  and  lay- 
ing in,  fresh  from  nature,  the  materials  of  his 
magnificent  descriptions  ?  Had  we  met  such  a 
poor  curious  pedlar  to-day,  we  would  willingly 
have  indulged  him  in  a  gratis  voyage  to  the 
Bass,  and  charged  the  expense  of  his  entertain- 


102  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

ment  to  the  account  of  the  forth-coming  volume  ; 
but  pedlars  of  the  type  of  the  Ornithologist  are, 
I  suspect,  rare.  The  last  of  the  fraternity  with 
whom  I  came  in  contact  was  a  tall,  corduroy-en- 
cased man,  laden  with  japanned  trays.  There 
was  an  idle  report  current  at  the  time — for  our 
meeting  occurred  shortly  after  the  Queen's  first 
visit  to  Scotland — that  her  Majesty  purposed 
purchasing  Craig-Millar  Castle,  and  getting  it 
fitted  up  into  a  royal  residence  ;  and  as  the 
castle  on  its  noble  slope,  with  the  blue  Pent- 
lands  in  the  back-ground,  and  Arthur's  Seat, 
half  in  shadow,  half  bronzed  by  the  sun,  full  in 
^  front,  formed  our  prospect  at  the  time,  the  tall 
pedlar  was  amusing  himself  in  loyally  criticis- 
ing the  landscape  on  behalf  of  his  sovereign. 
"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  there's  a  wheen  bonny  parks 
there,  an'  there's  bonny  bits  o'  wud  atween 
them ;  but  yonder's  a  curn  o'  reugh  hills,  an' 
it's  an  ugly  rocky  lump  that  Arthur's  Seat. 
Nae  doubt  the  place  is  no  a  bad  place,  but  it 
wad  be  a  hantle  prettier  place  for  a  Queen,  if 
we  could  but  tak'  awa  the  coorse  Pentlands  and 
the  reugh  Seat." 

How  vastly  more  strange  and  extravagant- 


GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS.  103 


looking  truth  is  than  fiction !  Our  Edinburgh 
Reviewers  deemed  it  one  of  the  gravest  among 
the  many  grave  offences  of  Wordsworth,  that 
he  should  have  made  the  hero  of  the  "  Excur- 
sion" a  pedlar.  "  What,"  they  ask,  "  but  the 
most  wretched  and  provoking  perversity  of  taste 
and  judgment  could  induce  any  one  to  place  his 
chosen  advocate  of  wisdom  and  virtue  in  so  ab- 
surd and  fantastic  a  condition  ?  Did  Mr. 
Wordsworth  really  imagine  that  his  favorite 
doctrines  were  likely  to  gain  anything  in  point 
of  effect  or  authority,  by  being  put  into  the 
mouth  of  a  person  accustomed  to  higgle  about 
tape  or  brass  sleeve-buttons  ?  Or  is  it  not  plain 
that,  independent  of  the  ridicule  and  disgust, 
which  such  a  personification  must  give  to  many 
of  his  readers,  its  adoption  exposes  his  work 
throughout  to  the  charge  of  revolting  incon- 
gruity and  utter  disregard  of  probability  or 
nature  ?"  If  the  critics  be  thus  severe  on  the 
mere  choice  of  so  humble  a  hero,  what  would 
they  not  have  said  had  the  poet  ventured  to 
represent  his  pedlar,  not  only  as  a  wise  and 
meditative  man,  but  also  as  an  accomplished 
writer,  and  a  successful  cultivator  of  natural 


104  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

science — the  author  of  a  great  national  work, 
eloquent  as  that  of  Buffon,  and  incomparably 
more  true  in  its  facts  and  observations  ?  Nay, 
what  would  they  have  said  if,  rising  to  the 
extreme  of  extravagance,  he  had  ventured  to 
relate  that  the  pedlar,  having  left  the  magnifi- 
cent work  unfinished  at  his  death,  an  accom- 
plished prince — the  nephew  of  by  far  the  most 
puissant  monarch  of  modern  times — took  it  up 
and  completed  it  in  a  volume,  bearing  honorable 
reference  and  testimony,  in  almost  every  page, 
to  the  ability  and  singular  faithfulness  of  his 
humbler  predecessor  the  "  Wanderer."  "Arid 
yet  this  strange  story,  so  full  of  "  revolting 
incongruity  and  utter  disregard  of  probability 
or  nature,"  would  be  exactly  that  of  the  Paisley 
pedlar,  Alexander  Wilson,  the  author  of  the 
"  American  Ornithology" — a  work  completed  by 
a  fervent  admirer  of  the  pedlar's  genius,  Prince 
Charles  Lucien  Bonaparte.  There  are  several 
passages  in  the  journal  kept  by  Wilson  when 
he  visited  Canty  Bay  and  its  neighborhood — 
though  he  was  a  young  man  at  the  time,  unpos- 
sessed of  that  mastery  over  the  powers  of 
thought  and  composition  to  which  he  afterwards 


GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS.  105 

attained — that  serve  strikingly  to  remind  one 
of  the  peculiar  vein  of  observation  and  reflec- 
tion developed  in  the  Wanderer  of  the  "  Excur- 
sion." The  following  incident,  for  instance, 
recorded  during  the  evening  on  which  he  jotted 
down  his  remarks  on  the  Bass,  seems  such  a 
one  as  the  humble  hero  of  Wordsworth  would 
have  delighted  to  narrate. 

He  had  passed  on  from  Canty  Bay  to  Tantal- 
lan,  where  he  lingered  long  amid  the  broken 
walls  and  nodding  arches.  And  then,  "  having 
sufficiently  examined  the  ancient  structure,"  he 
says,  "  I  proceeded  forwards,  and  arrived  at  a 
small  village,  where,  the  night  coming  on,  I 
obtained  lodgings  in  a  little  ale-house.  While 
I  sat  conversing  with  the  landlord,  he  communi- 
cated to  me  the  following  incident,  which  had 
recently  taken  place  in  a  family  in  the  neigh- 
borhood. About  six  months  ago,  the  master  of 
the  house,  who  was  by  trade  a  fisher,  fell  sick, 
and  continued  in  a  lingering  way  until  about 
three  weeks  ago,  when  his  distemper  increased 
to  that  degree  that  all  hopes  of  recovery  were 
gone.  In  these  circumstances  he  prepared 
himself  for  dissolution  in  a  manner  that  be- 
5* 


106  GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS. 

came  a  Christian,  and  agreeably  to  the  charac- 
ter he  had  all  along  been  distinguished  by  when 
in  health  and  vigor.  Meanwhile,  his  wife,  being 
pregnant,  drew  near  the  time  of  her  delivery ; 
and  as  the  thought  that  he  should  not  see  his 
last  child  cost  the  poor  man  no  small  uneasi- 
ness, it  became  one  of  his  fervent  petitions  to 
Heaven  that  he  might  be  spared  until  after  its 
birth.  But  his  malady  increased,  and  all  his 
relations  were  called  on  to  take  their  last  fare- 
well. While  they  stood  round  his  bed,  expect- 
ing his  immediate  departure,  his  wife  was 
taken  suddenly  ill,  and  in  less  than  an  hour  was 
delivered  of  twins,  which  the  dying  man  no 
sooner  understood,  than  he  made  signs  that 
the  minister  should  be  sent  for,  who  according- 
ly in  a  short  time  came.  He  then  attempted  to 
rise  in  bed,  but  his  strength  was  exhausted. 
Hereupon  one  of  his  daughters  went  into  the 
bed  behind  him,  and  supported  his  hands  until 
he  held  up  both  the  children,  first  one  and  then 
the  other.  Then,  kissing  them  both,  he  deliv- 
ered them  over  to  their  mother,  and,  reclining 
his  head  softly  on  the  pillow,  expired."  Such 
is  one  of  the  more  characteristic  passages  in 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  107 

the  prose  "  Excursion"  of  the  Pedlar  Wilson. 
It  forms,  however,  no  part  of  the  Geology  of 
the  Bass. 

Let  us  now  see  whether  we  cannot  form  some 
consistent  theory  regarding  the  origin  and 
early  history  of  the  rock.  It  occurs,  as  has 
been  said,  in  a  highly  disturbed  district,  which 
extends  on  the  west  to  Aberlady  Bay,  and  on 
the  east  to  near  the  ancient  Castle  of  Dunbar, 
and  includes  in  its  stormy  area  by  far  the 
greater  part  of  the  parishes  of  Whitekirk, 
Prestonkirk,  North  Berwick,  Dirleton,  and 
Athelstaneford.  The  trap  islands  and  skerries, 
that  lie  on  both  sides  parallel  to  the  shore,  show 
that  this  Plutonic  region  does  not  at  least  im- 
mediately terminate  with  the  coast  line  ;  while 
the  Isle  of  May — a  vast  mass  of  greenstone, 
lofty  enough  to  raise  its  head  above  the  pro- 
founder  depths  of  the  Frith  beyond — may  be 
regarded  as  fairly  indicating  that,  on  the  con- 
trary, it  stretches  quite  as  far  under  the  sea 
as  into  the  interior  of  the  country.  And  occu- 
pying nearly  the  centre  of  this  disturbed  dis- 
trict, like  some  undressed  obelisk  standing 
lichened  and  gray  in  the  middle  of  some  ancient 


108  GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS. 

battle-field,  rises  the  tall  column  of  the  Bass. 
How  account  for  its  presence  there  ? 

The  thick  of  the  battle  between  the  Vulcan- 
is  ts  and  Neptunians  has  always  lain  around  ele- 
vations of  this  character  :  they  have  formed  posts 
of  vantage,  for  the  possession  of  which  the  con- 
tending parties  have  struggled  like  the  British 
and  French  forces  at  Waterloo  round  Hougou- 
mont  and  La  Haye  Sainte  ;  but  the  wind  of  the 
commotion  has  been  long  since  laid,  and  they 
may  now  be  approached  fearlessly  and  in  safe- 
ty. The  Wernerians,  some  of  whom  could 
believe,  about  the  beginning  of  the  present  cen- 
tury, that  even  obsidian  and  pumice  were  of 
"  aquatic  formation,"  regarded  them  as  mere 
aqueous  concretions,  terminating  abruptly  be- 
low, without  communication  with  rocks  of  re- 
sembling character,  and  as  similar  in  their 
origin  to  the  hard  insulated  yolks  which  some- 
times occur  in  beds  of  sandstone  and  of  lime  ; 
while  the  Huttonians  held  them,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  be,  like  the  lava  of  volcanoes,  produc- 
tions of  the  internal  fire,  and  believed  that  they 
communicated  in  every  instance  with  the  abyss 
from  which  their  substance  was  at  first  derived. 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  109 

Both  parties,  of  course,  agreed  in  recognising 
immense  denudation  as  the  agent  which  had 
scooped  from  around  them  the  softer  rocks,  in 
which,  according  to  the  Wernerian,  they  had 
consolidated  under  the  operations  of  some  un- 
known chemistry  ;  or  whose  rents  and  chasms, 
opened  by  the  volcanic  forces,  had  furnished, 
according  to  the  Huttonian,  the  moulds  in  which 
they  had  been  cast — as  an  iron-founder  casts 
his  ponderous  wheels,  levers,  and  axles,  in  ma- 
trices of  clay  or  sand,  that  communicate  by 
sluice  with  the  molten  reservoir  of  the  furnace. 
Let  us  take  immense  denudation,  then,  the  work 
of  tides  and  waves  operating  for  myriads  of  ages, 
as  an  agent  common  to  both  parties.  From 
where  Edinburgh  now  stands,  a  huge  dome  of 
the  Coal  Measures,  greatly  loftier  than  the 
Pentlands,  and  that  once  connected  the  coal- 
field of  Falkirk  with  that  of  Dalkeith,  has  been 
swept  away  by  this  tremendous  power  ;  while 
from  the  western  districts  of  Ross,  a  deposition 
of  the  Old  Red  Sandstone,  full  three  thousand 
feet  in  thickness,  has  in  iike  manner  been 
ground  down,  and  the  gneiss  rocks  on  which  it 
rested  laid  bare.  And  in  the  one  district  we 


110  GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS. 


find  eminences  of  harder  texture  than  the  mass 
that  had  once  enveloped  them — such  as  Arthur's 
Seat,  the  Castle  rock,  Corstorphine  Hill,  and 
the  Dalmahoy  Crags,  standing  up  in  high  re- 
lief;  and  mountains  such  as  Suil  Veinn,  Coul 
Beg,  and  Coul  More,  in  the  other. 

"Who  was  it  scooped  these  stony  waves'? 

Who  scalp'd  the  brows  of  old  Cairngorm, 
And  dug  these  ever-yawning  caves  1 — 
'Twas  I,  the  Spirit  of  the  storm." 

And  scattered  over  the  disturbed  district  of 
which  the  Bass  nearly  occupies  the  centre,  we 
find  resembling  marks  of  vast  denudation  ;  the 
Bass  itself,  the  four  adjoining  islands — the  Isle 
of  May,  the  Garlton  Hills  near  Haddington,  and 
the  Law  of  North  Berwick — serving  but  in  little 
part  to  indicate  the  height  at  which  th*e  envel- 
oping material  once  stood.  These  eminences 
compose,  according  to  the  poet,  the  stony  waves 
of  the  locality,  scooped  out  of  the  yielding  mass 
by  the  "  Spirit  of  the  storm." 

With  the  denuding  agencies  granted,  then, 
by  both  parties,  as  a  force  operative  in  convert- 
ing the  inequalities  in  solidity  of  the  rocks  of 
the  district  into  inequalities  of  level  on  its  sur- 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  Ill 

face,  let  us  next  remark,  that  all  the  eminences 
thus  scooped  out  are  composed  of  hard  trap ; 
while  the  reduced  mass  out  of  which  they  have 
been  dug  consists  either  of  soft  trap-tuff,  or  of 
stratified  shales,  sandstones,  and  limestones — 
rocks  these  last,  which  Wernerians  and  Hutton- 
ians  alike  recognise  as  of  sedimentary  origin. 
From  the  section  of  the  harder* traps,  exhibited 
on  the  general  surface  by  the  denuding  forces, 
can  we  alone  judge  of  their  original  forms  as 
solid  figures,  or  of  that  of  the  buried  portions  of 
them  ;  and  the  difficulty  of  determining  from 
mere  sections  the  form  of  even  regular  figures, 
may  serve  to  show  how  much  uncertainty  and 
doubt  must  always  attend  the  attempt  to  deter- 
mine from  mere  sections  the  form  of  irregular 
ones.  Let  us  suppose  that  a  mass  of  black 
opaque  glass,  thickly  charged  with  regularly- 
formed  cones  of  white  china — cones  described 
by  angles  of  many  various  degrees  of  acuteness, 
and  carelessly  huddled  together  in  every  possi- 
ble angle  of  inclination — has  been  ground  down 
to  a  considerable  depth,  as  if  by  the  denuding 
agencies,  and  then  polished.  In  how  many 
diverse  figures  of  white  would  not  the  china 


112  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

cones  be  presented  !  There  would  be  paraboles 
and  hyperboles,  circles,  ellipses,  and  isosceles 
triangles  ;  the  circles  would  be  of  every  variety 
of  size,  the  angles  of  every  degree  of  acuteriess 
— the  paraboles,  hyperboles,  and  ellipses,  of 
every  proportion  and  form  compatible  with  the 
integrity  of  these  figures  ;  and  who  save  the 
mathematician  who  had  studied  Conies  could 
demonstrate  that  the  one  normal  figure,  of  which 
all  these  numerous  forms  were  sections,  could 
be  the  cone,  and  the  cone  only  ?  But  if  the  em- 
bedded pieces  of  china  were  not  of  regular,  but 
of  irregular  figures,  their  forms  as  solids  could, 
from  the  sections  laid  open,  be  but  conjectured, 
not  demonstrated.  Such,  however,  is  the  difficulty 
with  which  the  geologist,  whatever  his  school, 
has  to  contend,  who  studies  by  section  the  forms 
of  the  trap-rocks,  inclosed  in  sedimentary  or 
tuffaceous  matrices  ;  and,  of  course,  great  un- 
certainty must  always  a.ttach  to  arguments, 
whether  for  the  support  or  demolition  of  any 
theory,  founded  upon  these  doubtful  forms.  It 
may  be  received  as  a  general  principle,  for  in- 
stance, that  dikes  and  veins  of  aqueous  origin, 
filled  by  the  ocean  from  above,  will  terminate 


"""1 

GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  113 

beneath  somewhat  in  a  wedge-like  fashion,  or, 
at  least,  that  they  will  terminate  beneath,  and 
will  be  open  above ;  whereas  of  veins  or  dikes 
of  Plutonic  origin,  filled  by  injected  matter  from 
the  abyss,  it  may  be  received  as  a  general  prin- 
ciple, that  while  they  may  in  some  cases  termi- 
nate in  a  wedge-like  form  above,  they  will  be 
always  open  below.  And,  accordingly,  much 
has  been  built  by  the  Huttonian  on  dikes  open 
beneath,  and  much  by  the  Wernerian  on  similar 
dikes  shut  beneath,  and  merely  open  a- top. 
But  the  section  in  such  cases  can  convey  but 
an  inadequate  and  doubtful  idea  of  the  inclosed 
mass,  whether  deposited  from  above,  or  injected 
from  below ;  and  even  were  the  idea  adequate, 
and  the  form  of  the  mass  demonstrably  ascer- 
tained, existing  in  many  cases  as  a  mere  frag- 
ment which  the  denuding  agent  has  spared, 
exceedingly  little  explanatory  of  its  origin  could 
with  propriety  be  founded  upon  its  form.  There 
exists,  I  doubt  not,  many  a  wedge-shaped  bed 
of  trap  that  has  now  no  connection  whatever 
with  the  abyssmal  depths.  It  is  demonstrable, 
however,  that  such  trap  wedges,  though  as  en- 
tirely insulated  as  yolks  or  concretions,  may 


114  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

have  been  filled  from  beneath  notwithstanding. 
Let  me  attempt  an  illustration,  which  may  serve 
also  to  exemplify  my  theory  of  the  Bass. 

Let  us  suppose,  then,  that  where  Edinburgh 
Castle  now  stands  there  yawned  of  old  the  cra- 
ter of  a  volcano.  The  molten  lava  boiled  fierce- 
ly within  the  chasm ;  the  imprisoned  gases 
struggled  hard  for  egress  ;  ever  and  anon  show- 
ers of  ashes  and  fragments  of  stone  were  emit- 
ted, and  in  their  descent  fell  all  around,  until  at 
length  a  considerable  hill  of  a  true  volcanic  tuff 
came  to  be  formed,  adown  which  there  rushed 
from  time  to  time  vast  beds  of  molten  matter, 
which,  gradually  cooling  on  the  slopes,  alternat- 
ed, in  the  form  of  trap  beds,  with  the  tuif.  At 
length  the  base  of  the  hill,  ever  widening  by 
this  process,  came  in  the  lapse  of  seasons  to 
extend  eastwards  to  what  are  now  Salisbury 
Crags — the  Crags  being,  let  us  suppose,  but  a 
portion  of  the  tuffaceous  bottom,  topped  by  one 
of  the  lava  beds  that  had  issued  from  the  cen- 
tral crater.  It  will,  of  course,  be  at  once  seen 
that  I  am  not  dealing  here  with  the  actual  theo- 
ry of  the  Crags  or  Castle  Hill :  the  actual  theo- 
ry the  reader  may  find,  if  he  wills,  ingeniously 


GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS.  115 


and  satisfactorily  stated  in  Mr.  Maclaren's 
interesting  "  Sketches  of  the  Geology  of  Fife 
and  the  Lothians."  I  am  dealing,  not  with  the 
actualities  of  the  case,  but,  for  the  sake  of  illus- 
tration, with  what  demonstrably  might  have 
been.  Let  us  suppose,  farther,  that  in  the  lapse 
of  ages  this  volcano  had  become  extinct — that 
the  lava  within  had  hardened  in  the  crater,  like 
a  pillar  of  molten  bronze  in  its  mould — and  that 
then,  through  the  gradual  submergence  of  the 
land,  the  eminence  had  come  to  be  exposed  to 
the  denuding  powers  of  the  great  gulf-stream 
setting  in  against  it  from  the  west,  and  the  pro- 
longed roll  of  the  waves  of  the  Atlantic,  occa- 
sionally aggravated  by  tempest.  At  first  the 
western  base  of  the  hill  would  begin  to  wear 
away,  as  the  tides  and  billows  chafed  against 
the  unsolid  tuff,  and  the  lava-beds,  deeply  un- 
dermined, broke  off  in  vast  masses  and  tumbled 
down.  Anon  the  solid  central  column,  moulded 
in  the  crater,  would  be  laid  bare  ;  yet  anon, 
thoroughly  divested  of  its  case,  it  would  stand 
out  as  an  insulated  stack,  with  but  the  tail  of 
softer  matter  behind  it,  which  it  had  shielded 
from  the  denuding  forces.  At  length,  of  the 


116  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

entire  hill  there  would  remain  but  the  central 
column,  greatly  shortened  in  its  altitude,  like 
the  trunk  of  a  tree  two-thirds  cut  down — the 
ridge  on  which  the  more  ancient  part  of  the  city 
now  stands — and  a  portion  of  the  eastern  base  of 
the  hill,  represented  by  Salisbury  Crags,  bear- 
ing atop  a  wedge  of  trap,  terminating  at  what 
is  called  the  Hunter's  Bog,  in  a  thin  edge,  and, 
though  at  one  time  connected  with  the  insulated 
column,  and  by  the  column  with  the  Plutonic 
depths  below,  now  cut  off  by  a  wide  chasm  from 
both.  And  then  at  this  stage,  through  an  up- 
heaval of  the  land,  let  us  suppose  that  the 
denuding  agents  had  ceased  to  operate,  and  that 
the  extinct  volcano  came  to  exist  permanently 
as  a  truncated  column  of  rock,  and  a  detached 
dike  of  consolidated  lava,  open  above  and  shut 
below — the  one  admirably  suited  to  form  the 
site  of  an  impregnable  stronghold — the  other 
to  furnish  the  foundation  of  a  Wernerian  argu- 
ment, conclusive  regarding  the  aqueous  origin 
of  trap.  The  mode  of  insulation  specified  here, 
is  but  one  of  many  in  which  wedges  and  over- 
lying masses  of  igneous  rock,  originally  de- 
rived from  the  gulf  beneath,  may  have  come 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  117 

to  exist  in  altogether  as  insulated  a  state  as 
sedimentary  beds  or  travelled  boulders. 

But  the  grand  question  at  issue  between  the 
two  schools  of  Geology  may  now  be  regarded  as 
finally  settled ;  and  the  trap-rocks,  with  the 
exception  of  the  tuffs,  in  the  composition  and 
arrangement  of  which,  as  has  been  shown,  both 
the  aqueous  and  the  Plutonic  elements  may 
have  been  operative,  have  been  made  over  entire 
to  the  Huttonian.  No  man  would  venture  at 
this  time  of  day  to  stand  up  for  the  "  aquatic 
formation"  of  obsidian  or  pumice,  and  few  in- 
deed for  the  sedimentary  origin  of  either  the 
greenstone  of  Salisbury  Crags  or  the  hybrid 
clinkstone  of  the  Bass.  The  volcanic  districts 
have  been  explored,  and  the  passage  of  the  lavas 
into  the  traps  carefully  noted,  with  their  resem- 
bling powers  of  disturbance,  when  ejected  into 
fissures,  or  existing  as  dikes.  The  assistance 
of  the  chemist,  too,  has  been  called  in  :  trap  has 
been  fused  into  a  porous  glass,  and  the  glass 
again  re-fused,  by  a  slow  process,  into  a  basal- 
tic crystallite,  undistinguishable  in  some  speci- 
mens from  the  original  rock,  or  converted,  by  a 
process  less  leisurely,  into  a  liver-like  wacke ; 


118  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.* 

and  lava  similarly  treated  has  been  made  to 
yield  a  resembling  glass  in  the  first  instance, 
and,  as  the  experiment  was  conducted  more  or 
less  slowly,  an  almost  identical  crystallite,  or  a 
liver-like  wacke,  in  the  second.  The  more  an- 
cient rocks  have  also  been  put  to  the  question, 
and  a  primary  hornblende  converted  in  the  cru- 
cible into  an  augitic  basalt.  The  quality  pos- 
sessed by  the  traps  of  altering  other  rocks  in 
immediate  contact  with  them  has  also  been  exa- 
mined, and  similar  alterations  produced  simply 
by  the  agency  of  heat  and  pressure.  Coal  in 
juxtaposition  with  a  trap-dike  has  been  found 
converted  into  coke,  clay  baked  into  lydian- 
stone  or  jasper,  chalk  fused  into  marble ;  and 
what  the  igneous  rock  did  of  old  in  the  bowels 
of  the  earth,  the  experimenter  has  succeeded  in 
doing  in  his  laboratory,  with  but  heat,  pressure, 
and  time  for  his  assistants.  There  are  few 
points  better  established  in  the  whole  circle  of 
geological  science,  than  the  igneous  origin  of 
the  trap-rocks. 

The  ponderous  column  of  the  Bass,  to  sum  up 
my  theory  in  a  few  words,  is  composed,  as  has 
been  shown,  of  one  of  the  harder  and  more  solid 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  119 

of  these  igneous  rocks.  Rising  near  the  centre 
of  the  disturbed  district  in  which  it  occurs,  it 
indicates,  I  am  inclined  to  hold,  the  place  of  a 
great  crater,  at  one  time  filled  to  the  top  with 
molten  matter,  which,  when  the  fires  beneath 
burnt  low,  gradually  and  slowly  consolidated 
into  crystallite  as  it  cooled,  until  it  became  the 
unyielding  rock  which,  we  now  find  it.  The 
tuffaceous  matrix  in  which,  it  had  been  moulded, 
exposed  to  the  denuding  agencies,  wore  piece- 
meal away  ;  much  even  of  the  upper  portion  of 
the  column  itself  may  have  disappeared  ;  and 
what  remains,  rising  from  the  level  of  the  sea- 
bottom  below  to  the  height  of  six  hundred  feet, 
may  be  regarded  as  the  capital-divested  top  of 
some  pillar  of  the  desert,  that,  buried  by  the 
drifting  sand,  exhibits  but  a  comparatively 
small  portion  of  its  entire  length  over  the  sur- 
face, but  descends  deep  into  the  interior,  com- 
municating with  the  very  basement  of  the  edi- 
fice to  which  it  belongs. 

We  had  now  spent  a  considerable  time  on  the 
island,  and  a  lovely  day  was  passing  into  a  still 
lovelier  evening.  The  sun  hung  low  over  the 
western  shoulder  of  North  Berwick  Law,  in  a 


120  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

sky  embrowned  along  the  horizon  by  a  diffused 
vapor,  the  effect  of  an  incipient  frost ;  and  the 
light,  tinged  as  if  with  blood,  fell  in  one  ruddy 
sheet  athwart  the  glassy  surface  of  the  sea,  now 
undisturbed  by  a  single  ripple,  and  imparted  a 
deep  tinge  of  purple  to  the  brown  ruins  at  our 
feet,  and  the  lichened  rocks  around  us.  The 
shadow  of  the  Bass,  elongated  for  miles, 
stretched  in  darkness  towards  the  east,  like  the 
shadow  of  the  mysterious  pillar  of  cloud  of  old 
along  the  sands  of  the  desert ;  while,  dim  in  the 
haze  towards  the  north,  we  could  discern,  and 
barely  discern,  the  uncertain  outline  of  the  gray 
cliffs  of  May,  with  its  white  Pharos  atop,  that 
seemed  a  sheeted  spectre — the  solitary  inhabit- 
ant of  some  island  of  Cloudland.  The  steep 
precipices  of  the  neighboring  coast  frowned 
dark  and  cold  in  the  shade,  but  the  red  beam 
slanted 'warmly  along  the  level  expanse  of  fields 
atop  ;  and  though  the  stern  Tantallan  presented 
to  us  his  shady  side,  there  was  a  strange  bright- 
ness in  the  gleam  of  his  eyes — the  slant  light, 
passing  sheer  through  window  and  shot-hole, 
traversed,  in  long  rules  of  ruddy  bronze,  the 
stratum  of  frosty  vapor  behind. 


GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS.  121 

There  was  a  magnificent  combination  of  fairy 
wildness  and  beauty  in  the  scene.  And  yet  it 
was  all  a  .reality,  though  a  transitory  one.  It 
tarnished  and  faded  as  the  sun  sank  lower  in 
the  cloud,  and  in  a  brief  half-hour  all  was  en- 
veloped in  gray.  And  then,  late  in  the  night, 
the  moon,  far  in  its  wane,  would  arise,  and  re- 
veal, amid  the  deep  solitude  of  the  islet,  a  scene 
of  drear  and  ghostly  uncertainties — jutting 
cliffs,  and  broken  and  roofless  walls,  and  a  dark 
sea  around,  traversed  by  one  broad  pathway  of 
undulating  light.  And  then  morning  would 
dawn,  and  the  beam  redden  and  strengthen,  and 
the  canvass  wrould  exhibit,  within  the  old  out- 
lines, another  and  fresher  succession  of  colors. 
Thus,  with  every  passing  hour  and  season,  and 
every  meteoric  change,  does  the  landscape  alter 
—now  tranquil  in  the  calm,  anon  troubled  with 
tempest ;  and  thus  has  it  ever  altered  ;  but  not 
merely  has  the  filling  up — the  shades  and  col- 
ors— done  so,  but  the  solid  outlines  also ;  and 
when  standing,  during  this  exquisite  evening 
hour,  beside  the  little  pyramid  on  the  summit 
of  the  rock,  I  could  not  help  wishing  that,  under 
the  influence  of  some  such  vision  as  fell  upon 
5 


122  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

Mirza  in  the  "  long  hollow  valley  of  Bagdad/' 
I  could  see  scene  succeed  scene  in  the  surround- 
ing area,  from  the  early  dawn  of  being  in  the 
days  of  the  Grauwacke,  down  to  those  historic 
periods  during  which,  doing  or  suffering,  man 
enacted  his  part  upon  the  stage.  How  many 
of  those  dark  enigmas  would  not  the  mere  sur- 
vey serve  to  solve,  which  a  true  though  little 
known  poet,  Colton,  invoked  the  genius  of  the 
inspired  Hebrew  lawgiver  to  unriddle  ! 

"Oil,  them  that  o'er  the  Egyptian  hurled 
Thy  crystal  wall,  and  didst  a  world 
Both  made  and  marred  record — Oh,  deign  to  tell, 
Seer  of  the  pillared  flame  and  granite  well ! 
Who  taught  old  Mother  Earth  to  hide 
The  lava's  age-repeated  tide  ; 
And  bid — though  centuries  toiled  in  vain — 
Her  thousandth  Eden  bloom  again ; 
Or  solve  what  eras,  since  the  shock 
Of  flood  and  flame,  rived  hill  and  rock, 
Have  rolled — to  turn  to  flint  and  stone 
The  Bison's  horn,  the  Mammoth's  bone  ! 
Embedded  deep  and  dark  they  lie, 
'Neath  mountains  heaped  on  mountains  high, 
So  long,  their  very  race  is  spent — 
They  exist  but  in  their  monument ; 
But  who  their  mausoleum  made  7 
Did  earthquakes  wield  that  mighty  spade 
That  renders  all  old  Babel  piled 
But  the  card  castle  of  a  child  1 


GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS.  123 

Strange,  that  Creation  can't  afford 

Such  pomp  to  shroud  her  sixth-day's  lord, 

But  gives  each  mean  or  monstrous  thing 

That  burial  she  denies  her  king. 

These  are  earth's  secrets — but  to  gain 

Those  of  the  Deep  thou  rent  in  twain, 

'Twere  worth  a  dull  eternity 

Of  common  life — to  question  thee." 

The  curtain  rises,  and  there  spreads  out  a 
wide  sea,  limited,  however,  in  its  area  by  a  dark 
fog  that  broods  along  the  horizon,  and  enveloped, 
even  where  best  seen,  in  a  gray  obscurity,  like 
that  of  a  misty  morning  in  May,  an  hour  before 
the  sun  has  risen.  It  is  the  ocean  of  our 
Scotch  Grauwacke  that  rolls  beneath  and  around 
us  ;  but  regarding  its  inhabitants — so  exceed- 
ingly numerous  and  well  defined  in  the  contem- 
porary seas  of  what  is  now  England — we  can 
do  little  more  than  guess.  We  know  merely 
that  it  rolls  its  waves  over  a  gray  impalpable 
mud,  to  whose  numerous  folds  it  communicates 
in  the  shallows  the  characteristic  ripple-mark- 
ings ;  that  it  possesses  a  chambered  shell  of 
the  genus  Orthocera,  with  two  or  three  obscure 
brachipods  ;  and  that  the  gray  mud  beneath 
abounds  in  some  localities  with  a  curious  zoo- 
phyte, akin  to  the  existing  sea-pens  of  our  deep 


124  GEOLOGY    OF   THE    BASS. 

submarine  hollows.  The  most  abundant  deni- 
zens of  that  twilight  sea  are  creatures  shaped 
like  a  quill,  or  rather  communities  of  creatures 
— for  each  quill  is  a  little  republic — that  enjoy 
their  central  shaft  with  its  stony  axis  as  com- 
mon property,  and  have  their  rows  of  micro- 
scopic domiciles  ranged  in  the  filaments  of  the 
web.  The  light  brightens  over  the  wide  ex- 
panse, and  the  fog  rises  ;  myriads  of  ages  have 
passed  by  ;  the  countless  strata  of  the  Grau- 
wacke  are  already  deposited ;  and  we  have 
entered  on  the  eras  of  the  Old  Red  Sandstone. 
That  change  has  taken  place,  to  the  reality  of 
which,  as  conclusively  indicated  in  space,  the 
judgment  of  Playfair  could  not  refuse  its  assent ; 
but  with  whose  slow  operations,  as  spread  over 
time  almost  lengthened  into  eternity,  his  im- 
agination failed  to  grapple.  The  perspective 
darkened  as  he  looked  along  the  long  vista 
of  the  ages  gone  by,  and  left  on  his  mind  but 
a  perplexing  and  shadowy  idea  of  a  dim  plat- 
form of  undefined  boundary,  on  which  chaotic 
revolutions  of  incalculable  vastness  were  per- 
formed during  periods  of  immeasurable  extent. 
It  does  seem  a  strange  fact,  and  yet  the  evi- 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  125 

dence  of  its  reality  as  such  is  incontrovertible, 
that  when  the  lower  beds  of  the  Old  Red  Sand- 
stone were,  to  borrow  from  the  philosopher, 
"only  beginning  to  be  deposited  in  the  shape 
of  mud  or  sand,  from  the  waters  of  a  superin- 
cumbent ocean,"  the  Grauwacke  on  which  they 
were  thrown  down  was  quite  as  old  a  looking 
rock  as  it  is  now,  and  that  the  numerous  grap- 
tolites  preserved  in  its  strata  existed  at  the 
time  but  as  the  dimly  preserved  fossils  which 
we  now  see  them — miniature  quills,  with  thickly 
serrated  edges,  drawn  in  glossy  bitumen  on  a 
ground  of  gray. 

With  the  beginnings  of  the  Old  Red  Sand 
stone  a  slight  change  takes  place  in  the  coloring 
of  the  prospect.  There  is  a  flush  of  ochrey  red 
over  yonder  shallow,  where  the  wave  beats  on 
the  ferruginous  sand ;  the  skerry  beyond  seems 
darkened  with  sea-weed;  and  though  we  are 
still,  as  before,  out  of  sight  of  land,  and  so  can 
know  little  regarding  its  productions,  we  may 
see  a  minute  branch  of  club-moss  floating  past, 
and  the  trunk  of  some  coniferous  tree,  and  can, 
in  consequence,  at  least  determine  that  land 
there  is.  But  mark  how  brightly  the  depths 


126  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

gleam  with  the  mirror-like  reflection  of  scales 
— scales  resplendent  with  enamel,  that  owe 
their  name — ganoid^  or  glittering — to  their 
brilliancy.  How  strangely  uncouth  the  forms 
of  these  ancient  denizens  of  the  deep,  and,  in 
some  instances,  how  monstrous  their  size ! 
Yonder,  swimming  leisurely  a  few  feet  under 
the  surface,  as  if  watching  the  play  of  a  distant 
shoal  of  Diplopteri,  is  the  ponderous  Astero- 
lepis — its  glassy  eyes  set  in  their  triangular 
sockets,  as  in  some  families  of  snakes,  immedi- 
ately over  its  mouth — its  head  armed  with  a 
dermal  covering  of  bone,  from  which  a  musket- 
bullet  would  rebound  as  from  a  stone-wall — its 
body  tiled  over  with  oblong  scales,  delicately 
carved,  like  the  inlaid  mail  of  a  warrior — its 
jaws  furnished  with  their  outer  tier  of  minute 
thickly  set  fish-teeth,  and  their  inner  tier  of 
reptile-teeth  greatly  bulkier  than  those  of  the 
crocodile,  and  set  at  wide  intervals,  after  the 
sauroid  pattern.  And  yonder — a  member  of 
the  same  family,  of  larger  scale  and  more  squat, 
though  somewhat  less  colossal  in  its  propor- 
tions— swims  the  strong  Holoptychius.  The 
numerous  flights  of  Pterichthys,  with  their 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  127 

compact  bodies,  spread  wings,  and  rudder-like 
tails,  resemble  flocks  of  submarine  birds ;  the 
plated  Coccosteus  and  the  broad  Glyptolepis  flap 
heavily  along  the  bottom  ;  crowds  of  minute 
Cheiracanthi,  with  all  their  various  cogeners, 
bristling  with  spines,  and  poised  on  membrana- 
ceous,  scale-covered  fins,  dart  hither,  thither, 
and  athwart,  in  the  green  stratum  above  ;  while 
dimly  seen,  a  huge  Crustacean  creeps  slowly 
over  the  ribbed  sand  beneath.  But  ages  and 
centuries  pass  in  quick  succession  as  the  waves 
roll  along  the  surface — species  and  genera  pass 
away,  families  become  extinct,  races  perish  ; 
the  rocks  of  the  Old  Red  Sandstone,  holding 
in  their  stony  folds  their  numerous  strange  or- 
ganisms, are  all  laid  down,  as  those  of  the 
Grauwacke  had  been  previously  deposited  ;  and 
the  scene  changes  as  the  unsummed  periods  of 
the  system  reach  their  close. 

There  is  a  further  increase  in  the  light,  as 
the  day  advances  and  the  sun  climbs  the  steep 
of  heaven  ;  but  the  fogs  of  morning  still  hang 
their  dense  folds  on  the  horizon.  We  shall  look 
out  for  the  land  when  the  mist  rises — -it  cannot 
now  be  far  distant.  The  brown  eddies  of  a 


128  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

freshet  circle  past,  restricted,  as  where  vast 
-rivers  mingle  with  the  ocean,  to  an  upper  layer 
of  sea  ;  and  broken  reeds,  withered  ferns,  the 
cones  of  the  Lycopodiaceae,  and  of  trees  of  the 
Araucarian  family,  float  outwards  in  the  cur- 
rent, thick  and  frequent  as  the  spoils  of  the 
great  Mississippi  in  the  course  of  the  voyager, 
when  he  has.  come  within  half-a-day's  sail  of  the 
shores  of  the  delta.  But  our  view  is  still  re- 
stricted, as  heretofore,  to  a  wide  tract  of  sea — 
now  whitened,  where  the  frequent  flats  and 
banks  rise  within  a  few  fathoms  of  the  surface, 
by  innumerable  beds  of  shells,  reefs  of  corals, 
and  forests  of  crinoidea.  Here  the  water  seems 
all  a-glow  with  the  brilliant  colors  of  the  living 
polypi  that  tenant  the  calcareous  cells — green, 
scarlet,  and  blue,  yellow  and  purple  :  we  seem 
as  if  looking  down  on  gorgeous  parterres,  sub- 
merged, when  in  full  blow,  or,  through  the  dew- 
bedimmed  panes  of  a  greenhouse,  on  the  mag- 
nificent heaths,  geraniums,  and  cacti  of  the 
warmer  latitudes,  when  richest  in  flower.  Yon- 
der there  lie  vast  argosies  of  snowy  terebratula, 
each  fast  anchored  to  the  rocky  bottom  by  the 
fleshy  cable  that  stretches  from  the  circular 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  129 

dead-eye  in  its  umbone,  like  the  mooring  chain 
from  the  prow  of  a  galley. ;  while  directly  over 
them,  vibrating  in  the  tide,  stretches  the  mar- 
ble-like petals  of  the  stone  lily.  The  surface 
is  ploughed  by  the  numerous  sailing  shells  of 
the  period — huge  orthocera,  and  the  whoiied 
nautilacese  and  goniatites.  And  fish  abound 
as  before,  though  the  races  are  all  different. 
We  may  mark  the  smaller  varieties  in  play  over 
the  coral  beds — the  lively  Palaeoniscus,  that  so 
resembles  a  gold-fish  cased  in  bone — and  the 
squat  deeply-bodied  Amblypterus,  with  its 
nicely  fretted  scales  and  plates,  and  its  strong- 
ly rayed  fins.  The  Gyracanthis,  with  its  mas- 
sy spine  carved  as  elaborately  as  the  'prentice 
pillar  in  Roslin,  swims  through  the  profounder 
depths,  uncertain  in  outline,  like  a  moying  cloud 
by  night ;  while  the  better  defined  Megalich- 
thys,  with  its  coat  of  bright  quadrangular 
scales,  and  its  closely-jointed  and  finely-punc- 
tulated  helmet  of  enamelled  bone,  glides  vigor- 
ously along  yonder  submarine  field  of  crinoidea, 
and  the  slim  stony  arms  and  tall  columnar 
stems  brushed  by  its  fins,  bend,  as  it  passes, 
like  a  swathe  of  tall  grass  swept  by  a  sudden 


130  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

breeze.  We  are  full  in  the  middle  of  the  era 
of  the  Carboniferous  Limestone.  And  some  of 
us  may  be  rendered  both  wiser  and  humbler, 
mayhap,  by  noting  a  simple  fact  or  two  directly 
connected  with  this  formation,  ere  the  curtain 
drop  over  it. 

We  have  already  marked,  in  our  survey,  nu- 
merous beds  of  shell,  glimmering  pale  through 
the  shallows  ;  here  argosies  of  terebratula  an- 
chored to  the  rocks  beneath — there  fleets  of 
chambered  nautilacea,  careering  along  the  sur- 
face of  the  waters  above.  But  it  is  chiefly  on 
the  fixed  shells — the  numerous  bivalves  of  the 
profounder  depths — that  I  would  now  ask  the 
reader  to  concentrate  his  attention.  They  be- 
long, in  large  proportion,  to  a  class  imperfectly 
represented  in  the  existing  seas,  and  which  had 
comparatively  few  representatives  during  even 
the  Secondary  periods,  rich  as  these  were  in 
molluscs  of  high  development ;  though,  during 
the  great  Palaeozoic  division,  their  vast  abun- 
dance formed  one  of  the  most  remarkable  cha- 
racteristics of  the  period.  Of  this  class  (the 
Brachipoda  of  the  modern  naturalist),  many 
hundred  species  have  already  been  determined 


GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS.  131 

in  the  older  rocks  of  our  island ;  while,  as 
living  inhabitants  of  the  seas  which  encircle  it, 
Dr.  Fleming,  in  his  "  British  Animals,"  enume- 
rates but  four  species ;  and  none  of  these — 
such  is  their  rarity — the  greater  part  of  my 
readers  ever  saw.*  These  Brachipoda,  of 
which  in  the  Carboniferous  Lime-stone  there 
existed  the  numerous  families  of  the  Terebra- 
tula,  the  Spirifer,  and  the  Productus,  were  in 
all  their  species  bivalves  of  an  exceedingly 
helpless  class  :  the  valves,  instead  of  being 
united,  as  in  the  cockle,  muscle,  pecten,  and 
oyster,  by  strong  elastic  hinges,  were  merely 
sewed  together,  if  I  may  so  speak,  by  bundles 
of  unelastic  fleshy  fibres ;  and  the  opening  of 
the  lips  a  very  little  apart — so  simple  and  fa- 
cile a  movement  to  the  ordinary  bivalve — was 
to  the  Brachipod  an  achievement  feebly  ac- 
complished through  the  agency  of  an  operose 
and  complex  machinery.  To  compensate,  how- 
ever, for  the  defect,  the  creatures  were  furnish- 
ed on  both  sides  the  mouth  with  numerous  cilia, 
or  hair-like  appendages,  through  the  rapid  vi- 

*  TEREBRATULA    eranium,   T.    psiUacea,   T.  aurita,  and 
CRISPUS  anomalus. 


132  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 


bratory  movements  of  which  they  could  produce 
minute  currents  in  the  water,  and  thus  bring 
into  the  interior  of  their  shells,  between  lips 
raised  but  a  line  apart,  the  numerous  particles 
of  organic  matter  floating  around  them  which 
constituted  their  proper  food.  They  resembled 
in  their  mode  of  living  rather  the  orders  below 
them — radiata  such  as  the  Actinea,  or  zoophytes 
such  as  the  TubulariadcB — than  true  mol- 
luscs. But  there  are  no  mistakes  in  the  work 
of  the  Divine  Mechanician  :  in  the  absence  of 
an  elastic  hinge,  the  minute  cilia  performed 
their  part ;  and  so  throughout  the  vast  periods 
of  the  Palaeozoic  division  the  helpless  Brachi- 
poda  continued  to  exist  in  vastly  greater  num- 
bers than  any  of  their  contemporaries. 

Now,  it  is  a  curious  circumstance  that  Paley, 
when  adducing,  in  his  "Natural  Theology," 
some  of  the  marks  of  design  so  apparent  in  the 
hinge  of  bivalves,  such  as  the  cockle  and  oyster, 
misses  by  far  the  most  important  point  exhibit- 
ed in  its  construction  ;  and  so  converts  his  bi- 
valves into  poor  helpless  brachipocla,  unfurnish- 
ed with  the  compensatory  cilia.  It  is  further 
curious  that,  in  the  elaborate  edition  of  the 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  133 

"Theology,"  jointly  published  by  Lord  Brough- 
am and  Sir  Charles  Bell,  though  there  be  a 
neat  wood- cut  of  the  Venus-heart  Cockle  given, 
to  illustrate  their  author's  idea,  the  omitted 
point  is  not  noticed.  "In  the  bivalve  order  of 
shell-fish,"  says  the  Archdeacon — "  cockles, 
mussels,  oysters,  <fcc. — what  contrivance  can  be 
so  simple  or  so  clear  as  the  insertion  at  the 
back  of  a  tough  tendinous  substance,  that  be- 
comes at  once  the  ligament  which  binds  the 
two  shells  together,  and  the  hinge  upon  which 
they  open  and  shut."  Most  true  ! — the  insert- 
ed cartilage  is  both  ligamenf  and  hinge ;  but 
even  some  of  the  helpless  brachipoda  have,  in 
the  one  insertion  at  their  back,  both  ligament 
and  hinge,  and  are  helpless  brachipoda  notwith- 
standing ;  whereas  the  cockle,  oyster,  mussel, 
and  all  bivalves  of  their  order,  can  do  what  the 
brachipoda  cannot — open  their  shells  with  great 
promptitude  ;  and  at  least  a  few  of  them  can, 
like  the  pecten,  dart  edgeways  through  the 
water  like  missiles  thrown  by  the  hand,  simply 
by  the  rapid  shutting  of  their  valves  again. 
These  have  been  described  as  the  butterflies  of 
the  sea.  Whence  comes  this  opening  power, 


134  GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS. 

which  Paley?s  description  so  evidently  does  not 
involve  ?  The  power  of  opening  the  human 
palm  resides  in  the  muscles  on  the  back  of  the 
fore-arm  ;  the  power  of  shutting  it,  in  the  mus- 
cles in  the  front  of  the  fore-arm  directly  oppo- 
site. These  last — the  muscles  operative  in 
shutting  the  palm — are  in  the  cockle,  and  all 
other  bivalves  of  its  class,  represented  by  the 
adductor  muscles  ;  but  what  represents  in  the 
shell  those  antagonist  muscles  by  which  the 
palm  is  opened  ?  The  bivalve,  from  its  peculiar 
construction,  can  have  no  antagonist  muscles  ; 
its  little  circle  of  *life  is  bounded  by  the  lips  of 
the  two  valves ;  and  as  the  proper  place  of  the 
antagonist  muscles  would  be  of  necessity  on  the 
outside  of  the  shell,  far  beyond  that  circle  of 
vitality,  antagonist  muscles  it  cannot  possibly 
possess  ;  and  yet,  whenever  the  creature  wills 
it.  the  work  of  the  missing  muscles  is  promptly 
performed.  Now,  mark  how  this  happens. 
The  cartilage  inserted  at  the  back  is,  according 
to  Paley,  at  once  the  ligament  which  binds  the 
two  shells  together,  and  the  hinge  upon  which 
they  open  and  shut,  but  it  is  yet  something  more 
— it  is  a  powerful  spring,  compressed,  and,  if  I 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  135 


may  use  the  phrase,  "  set  on  full  cock,"  by  the 
strain  of  the  adductor  muscles  ;  and  no  sooner 
is  that  strain  relaxed  than  up  flies  the  valve — 
like  some  ingeniously  contrived  trap-door,  when 
one  releases  the  steel-spring — in  obedience  to 
the  mechanical  force  locked  up  for  use  in  the 
powerfully  elastic  bit  of  cartilage,  that  without 
derangement  or  confusion  serves  so  many  vari- 
ous purposes.  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller  is  said  to 
have  remarked,  in  the  plenitude  of  his  conceit, 
that  if  God  Almighty  had  taken  his  advice  on 
some  important  points  of  contrivance,  matters 
would  probably  have  been  better  on  the  whole  ; 
and  the  saying  is  recorded  as  characteristic  of 
the  irreverent  vanity  of  the  artist.  Alas,  poor 
addle-headed  coxcomb  !  Paley  and  his  two 
editors — men  of  high  standing  compared  with 
Sir  Godfrey — could  not  have  been  entrusted,  it 
w^ould  seem,  by  the  great  First  Designer  with 
the  construction  of  even  the  hinge  of  a  bivalve. 
The  cockles,  oysters,  pectens,  and  mussels, 
hinged  by  them,  would  be  all  helpless  brachipo- 
i  da,  with  not  only  no  spring  in  their  hinges,  but 
also  unfurnished  with  the  compensatory  ap- 
paratus within,  and  would,  in  consequence, 


136  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

become  extinct  in  a  week.     Is  there  no  lesson 
here  ? 

But,  lo !  the  mist  rises,  and  slowly  dissipates 
in  the  sun  ;  and  yonder,  scarce  half-a-mile  away, 
is  the  land — a  low  swampy  shore,  covered  by  a 
rank  vegetation.  Thickets  of  tall  plants,  of 
strange  form  and  singular  luxuriance,  droop 
over  the  coast-edge  into  the  sea,  like  those  man- 
grove jungles  of  Southern  America,  that  bear 
on  their  branches  crops  of  oysters.  There  are 
reeds,  with  their  light  coronals  of  spiky  leaves 
radiating  from  their  numerous  joints,  that  rival 
the  masts  of  vessels  in  size — ferns,  whose  mag- 
nificent fronds  overshadow  half  a  rood  of  surface, 
that  attain  to  the  bulk  and  height  of  forest  trees 
— club-mosses,  tall  as  Norwegian  pines — and 
strangely  carved,  cacti-looking,  leaf-covered 
trunks,  bulky  as  the  body  of  a  man.  Nor  is 
there  any  lack  of  true  trees,  that  resemble 
those  of  the  existing  period,  as  exhibited  in  the 
southern  hemisphere — stately  araucarians,  that 
lift  their  proud  heads  a  hundred  feet  over  the 
soil — and  spiky  pines,  that  raise  their  taper 
trunks  and  cone-covered  boughs  to  a  scarce 
lower  elevation.  And  yonder  green  and  level 


GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS.  137 

land,  dank  with  streaming  vapor,  and  where  the 
golden  light  streams  through  long  bosky  vistas, 
crowded  with  prodigies  of  the  vegetable  king- 
dom— Sigillaria,  Favularia,  and  Ulodendra — is 
the  land  of  the  Coal  Measures. 

Three  of  the  great  geologic  periods,  compris- 
ing almost  the  whole  of  the  Palaeozoic  division, 
have  already  gone  by  ;  and  yet  the  history  of 
the  Bass  as  an  igneous  rock  is  still  to  begin. 
But  we  have  at  least  laid  down  the  groundwork 
of  the  surrounding  landscape.  And  be  it  re- 
membered that  all  these  scenes,  however  much 
they  may  seem  the  work  of  fancy,  were  realities 
connected  with  the  laying  of  these  deep  founda- 
tions— realities  which  might  have  been  as  cer- 
tainly witnessed  from  the  point  in  space  now 
occupied  by  the  rude  crowning  pyramid  of  the 
Bass — had  there  been  a  human  eye  to  look 
abroad,  or  a  human  sensorium  to  receive  the 
impressions  which  it  conveyed — as  the  scene 
furnished  by  the  lovely  sunset  of  this  evening. 
Sir  Roderick  Murchison,  in  his  magnificent 
"Silurian  System,"  has  given  the  example  of 
rendering  landscapes  according  to  their  real  out- 
lines, but  colored  according  to  the  tints  of  the 


138  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

geologic  map ;  and  the  practice  possesses  the 
advantage  of  making  the  diverse  features  of 
the  various  formations  address  themselves  with 
peculiar  emphasis  to  the  eye.  Were  the  real 
landscape  which  the  summit  of  the  Bass  com- 
mands to  be  so  colored,  we  would  see  its  wide 
area  composed  of  characteristic  representatives 
of  each  of  the  three  systems,  whose  successive 
depositions  we  have  described.  The  distant 
promontory  to  the  east,  on  which  Fast  Castle 
stands,  with  the  hills  in  the  interior  that  sweep 
along  the  entire  back-ground  of  the  prospect, 
would  bear  the  deep  purple  tinge  appropriated 
by  the  geologist  to  the  Grauwacke.  Leaning  at 
their  feet,  from  the  Siccar  Point  to  Gilford,  and 
from  Gilford  to  Fala,  besides  abutting  on  the 
sea  in  insulated  patches — as  at  North  Berwick, 
Canty  Bay,  Tantallan,  Seacliff,  and  Belhaven — 
we  would  next  see,  spread  over  a  large  space  in 
the  scene,  the  deep  chocolate  tint  assigned,  not 
unappropriately,  to  the  Old  Red.  From  Cock- 
burnspath  to  Dunbar  on  the  one  hand,  and  from 
Aberlady  Bay  to  Arthur's  Seat  on  the  other, 
the  landscape  would  exhibit  the  cold  gray  hue 
of  the  Coal  Measures,  here  and  there  mottled 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  139 

with  tile  light  azure  that  distinguishes  in  the 
map  the  Carboniferous  Limestone  ;  while  the  trap 
eminences,  with  the  tuff  of  the  opposite  shore, 
and  the  island  mass  at  our  feet,  would  fiame  in 
the  deep  crimson  of  the  geologic  colorist — as  if 
the  igneous  rocks  of  which  they  are  composed 
still  retained  the  red  heat  of  their  molten  con- 
dition. Such  would  be  the  conventional  coloring 
of  the  landscape ;  vast  tracts  of  purple,  of  choco- 
late, of  gray,  and  of  blue,  would  indicate  the 
proportional  space  occupied  in  its  area  by  the 
three  great  systems  that  have  furnished  us  with 
a  picture  a-piece ;  and  what  we  have  now  to 
conjure  up — the  platform  of  the  stage  being 
fairly  erected,  and  its  various  coverings  laid 
down — is  the  scene  illustrative  of  the  origin  and 
upheaval  of  the  various  trap-rocks  that  have 
come  to  form  the  bolder  features  of  the  prospect 
— among  the  rest,  supreme  in  the  centre  of  the 
disturbed  district,  the  stately  column  of  the  Bass. 
The  land  of  the  Coal  Measures  has  again  dis  - 
appeared  ;  and  a  shoreless  but  shallow  ocean, 
much  vexed  by  currents,  and  often  lashed  by 
tempest,  spreads  out  around,  as  during  the  ear- 
lier periods.  But:there  are  more  deeply-seated 


140  GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS. 

heavings  that  proceed  from  the  centre  of  the 
immediate  area  over  which  we  stand,  than  ever 
yet  owed  their  origin  to  storm  or  tide.  Ever 
and  anon  waves  of  dizzy  altitude  roll  outwards 
towards  the  horizon,  as  if  raised  by  the  fall  of 
some  such  vast  pebble  as  the  blind  Cyclops  sent 
whizzing  through  the  air  after  the  galley  of 
Ulysses,  wiien 

"  The  whole  sea  shook,  and  refluent  beat  the  shore/' 

We  may  hear,  too,  deep  from  the  abyss,  the 
growlings  as  of  a  subterranean  thunder,  loud 
enough  to  drown  the  nearer  sounds  of  both  wave 
and  current.  And  now,  as  the  huge  kraken 
lifts  its  enormous  back  over  the  waves,  the  solid 
strata  beneath  rise  from  the  bottom  in  a  flat 
dome,  crusted  with  shells  and  corals,  and  dark 
with  algae.  The  billows  roll  back — the  bared 
strata  heave,  and  crack,  and  sever — a  dense 
smouldering  vapor  issues  from  the  opening  rents 
and  fissures — and  now  the  stony  pavement  is 
torn  abruptly  asunder,  like  some  mildewed  cur- 
tain seized  rudely  by  the  hand — a  broad  sheet 
of  flame  mounts  sudden  as  lightning  through 
the  opening,  a  thousand  fathoms  into  the  sky — • 


GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS.  141 

"  Infuriate  molten  rocks  and  flaming  globes, 
Mount  high  above  the  clouds" — 

and  the  volcano  is  begun.  Meanwhile  the  whole 
region  around,  far  as  the  eye  can  reach,  heaves 
wildly  in  the  throes  of  Plutonic  convulsion. 
Ai>ove  many  a  rising  shallow,  the  sea  boils  and 
roars,  as  amid  the  skerries  of  some  rocky  bay 
open  to  the  unbroken  roll  of  the  ocean  in  a  time 
of  tempest ;  the  platform  of  sedimentary  rock 
over  an  area  of  many  square  miles  is  fractured 
like  the  ice  of  some  Highland  tarn,  during  a 
hasty  spring  thaw  that  swells  every  mountain 
streamlet  into  a  river  ;  waves  of  translation, 
produced  at  once  in  numerous  centres  by  the 
sudden  upheaval  of  the  bottom,  meet  and  con- 
flict under  canopies  of  smoke  and  ashes  ;  the 
light  thickens  as  the  reek  ascends,  and,  amid 
the  loud  patter  of  the  ejected  stones  and  pu- 
mice, as  they  descend  upon  the  sea — the  roar- 
ing of  the  flames — the  rending  of  rocks — the 
dash  of  waves — and  the  hollow  internal  grum- 
blings of  earthquakes — dark  night  comes  down 
upon  the  deep.  Vastly  extended  periods  pass 
away  ;  there  are  alternate  pauses  and  parox- 
ysms of  convulsion  ;  and  ere  the  Plutonic  agen- 


142  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

cies,  worn  out  in  the  struggle,  are  laid  fairly 
asleep,  and  the  curtain  again  rises,  the  entire 
scene  is  changed.  Of  the  old  sedimentary  rocks 
there  remain,  in  a  wide  tract,  only  a  few  insula- 
ted beds,  half-buried  in  enormous  accumulations 
of  volcanic  debris — debris  stratified  by  the 
waves,  and  consolidated  into  a  tolerably  adhe- 
sive tuff  by  the  superincumbent  pressure,  and 
here  traversed  by  long  dikes  of  basalt,  and 
there  overlaid  by  ponderous  beds  of  greenstone. 
The  Bass  towers  before  us  as  a  tall  conical  hill, 
deeply  indented  atop  by  the  now  silent  crater 
— its  slopes  formed  of  loose  ashes  and  rude 
fragments  of  ejected  rock,  and  with  the  flush  of 
sulphur,  here  of  a  deep  red,  there  of  a  golden 
yellow,  still  bright  on  its  sides. 

Let  us  rightly  conceive  of  the  hill  in  this, 
the  last  of  its  bygone  aspects.  Nearly  two 
centuries  ago  there  was  a  large  tract  of  land 
covered  over,  in  the  north  of  Scotland,  by  blown 
sand  ;  and  among  the  other  interred  objects — 
such  as  human  dwellings,  sheep  and  cattle-folds, 
gateways,  and  the  fences  of  fields  and  gar- 
dens— there  were  several  orchard  trees,  envel- 
oped in  the  dry  deluge,  and  buried  up.  Of  one 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  143 

of  these  it  is  said  that  the  upper  branches  pro- 
jected for  several  years  from  the  top  of  the  pyr- 
amidal hillock  that  had  formed  around  it,  and 
that  they  continued  to  produce  in  their  season 
a  few  stunted  leaves,  with  here  and  there  a 
sickly  blossom ;  but  the  branches  at  length 
dried  up  and  disappeared,  and  for  more  than  a 
century  there  were  scarce  any  of  the  inhabit- 
ants of  the  neighboring  district  who  seemed  to 
know  what  it  was  the  conical  hillock  contained. 
And  then  the  prevailing  winds  that  had  so  long 
before  covered  up  the  orchard  tree  began  to 
scoop  out  the  sides  of  its  arenaceous  tumulus, 
and  to  lay  bare  twig  and  branch,  and  at  length 
the  trunk  itself ;  but  the  rotting  damps,  operat- 
ing on  the  wood  in  a  state  of  close  seclusion  from 
the  free  air,  had  wrought  their  natural  work  ; 
and  as  the  tumulus  crumbled  away,  the  twigs 
and  boughs,  with  their  upper  portion  of  the 
trunk,  crumbled  away  also ;  till  at  length,* 
when  the  entire  enveloping  material  was  re- 
moved, there  remained  of  the  tree  but  an  up- 
right stump,  that  rose  a  few  feet  over  the  soil. 
Now,  the  conical  envelop  or  tumulus  of  debris 
and  ashes  which  at  this  stage  composes  the 


144  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

exterior  covering  of  the  Bass,  resembles  exactly 
that  which  surrounded,  in  the  buried  barony  of 
Cubin,  the  orchard-tree  ;  while  its  stony  centre 
of  trap,  moulded  in  the  tubular  crater,  with  its 
various  branch-like  arm  bent  earthwards  like 
those  of  the  weeping  ash — the  remains  of  erup- 
tive currents  flowing  outwards  and  downwards 
— represent  the  tree  itself.  The  denuding 
agent  is  not,  as  in  the  sandy  wastes  of  Moray, 
the  keen  dry-  wind  of  the  west,  but  the  slow 
wear,  prolonged  through  many  ages,  of  waves 
and  currents.  The  sloping  sides  crumble  down 
— the  stony  branches  fall  undermined,  into  the 
tide,  and  are  swept  away — until  at  length,  as  in 
the  orchard-tree  of  my  illustration,  there  re- 
mains but  an  abrupt  and  broken  stump — the 
ancient  storm- worn  island  of  the  Bass. 

The  enormous  amount  of  denudation  which 
the  theories  of  the  geologist  demand,  however 
consonant  with  his  observations  of  fact,  may 
well  startle  the  uninitiated.  The  Lower  Coal 
Measures  appear  on  three  sides  of  this  disturb- 
ed district ;  they  may  be  traced,  as  has  been 
shown  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  Dun- 
bar  to  the  east ;  they  occur  at  Abbey  Toll,  near 


GEOLOGY    OP    THE    BASS.  145 

Haddington,  on  the  south  ;  and  they  extend  a 
little  beyond  Aberlady  Bay  on  the  west ;  while 
the  sedimentary  rocks  that  appear  in  the  centre 
of  the  area,  directly  opposite  the  Bass,  belong, 
as  has  also  been  shown,  to  an  inferior  member 
of  the  Old  Red  Sandstone.  The  surrounding 
Coal  Measures  from  the  edges  of  a  broken  dome, 
that,  upheaved  originally  by  the  volcanic  forces, 
as  a  bubble  in  a  crucible  of  boiling  sulphur  is 
inflated  and  upheaved  by  the  imprisoned  gas, 
has  been  ground  down,  as  it  rose;  by  the  denud- 
ing agencies,  until  in  the  centre  of  the  area  the 
Lower  Old  Red  Rocks  have  been  laid  bare. 
And  so  immense  was  the  dome,  though,  of 
course,  destroyed  piecemeal  as  it  rose — as  a  log 
in  a  saw-mill  is  cut  piecemeal  by  being  gradu- 
ally impelled  on  the  saw — that  immediately 
over  the  Bass  it  would  have  now  risen,  had  it 
been  suffered  to  mount  unworn  and  unbroken, 
to  an  altitude  scarce  inferior  to  that  of  Ben 
Nevis  or  Ben  Macdui.  In  this  region  of  birds 
— dwellers  on  the  dizzy  cliff — no  bird  soars  half 
so  high  as  the  imaginary  dotted  line  some  three 
or  four  thousand  feet  over  the  level,  at  which, 
save  for  the  wear  of  the  waves  when  the  volcanic 

i 


146  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

agencies  are  propelling  the  surface  upwards,  the 
higher  layers  of  the  Coal  Measures  would  now 
have  stood.  Denudation  to  an  extent  equally 
great  has  taken  place  immediately  over  the  site 
of  the  city  of  JEdinburgh.  Lunardi,  in  his  bal- 
loon, never  reached  the  point,  high  over  our 
towers  and  spires,  at  which,  save  for  the  w^aste 
of  ocean,  the  upper  coal-seams  would  at  this 
moment  have  lain.  There  are  various  localities 
in  Scotland  in  which  the  loss  of  surface  must 
have  been  greater  still ;  and  fancy,  overborne 
by  visions  of  waste  and  attrition  on  a  scale  so 
gigantic,  can  scarce  take  the  conception  in  ;  far 
less  can  the  mind,  when  unassisted  by  auxiliary 
facts,  receive  it  as  a  reality.  Viewed,  however, 
in  connection  with  the  vast  periods  which  have 
intervened  since  the  last  of  these  denuded  rocks 
were  formed — and,  be  it  remembered,  that  im- 
mediately after  their  formation  denudation  may 
have  begun — viewed,  too,  in  connection  with 
that  work  of  deposition  which  has  been  going  on 
during  these  periods  elsewhere,  and  with  the 
self-evident  truth  that,  mainly  from  the  wear 
of  the  older  rocks  have  the  materials  of  the 
newer  been  derived — it  grows  into  credibility, 


GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS.  147 

and  takes  its  place  among  kindred  wonders, 
simply  as  one  of  the  facts  of  a  class.  During 
the  denudation,  to  the  depth  of  three  or  four 
thousand  feet,  of  the  tract  of  country  where  the 
capital  of  Scotland  now  stands,  a  deposition  to 
a  vastly  greater  depth  was  taking  place  in  the 
tract  of  country  occupied  by  the  capital  of  Eng- 
land. Nor  does  it  seem  in  any  degree  more 
strange  that  the  rocks  in  the  one  locality  should 
have  been  ground  down  from  the  red  sandstones 
of  Roslin  to  the  calciferous  beds  which  underlie 
the  Mountain  Limestone,  than  that  strata  should 
have  been  laid  over  strata  in  the  other,  from  the 
Trias  sic  group  to  the  Oolite,  and  from  the 
Oolite  to  the  London  Clay.  Had  there  not 
been  immense  waste  and  attrition  among  the 
Primary  and  Palaeozoic  rocks,  there  could  have 
been  no  Secondary  formations,  and  no  Tertiary 
system. 

My  history  speeds  on  to  its  conclusion.  We 
dimly  descry,  amid  fog  and  darkness,  yet  one 
scene  more.  There  has  been  a  change  in  the 
atmosphere,  and  the  roar  of  flame,  and  the  hol- 
low voice  of  earthquake,  are  succeeded  by  the 
howling  of  wintry  tempests  and  the  crash  of 


148  GEOLOGY    OF    THE    BASS. 

icebergs.  Wandering  fragments  of  the  north- 
ern winter,  bulky  as  hills,  go  careering  over  the 
submerged  land,  grinding  down  its  softer  rocks 
and  shales  into  clay,  leaving  inscribed  their 
long  streaks  and  furrows  on  its  traps  and  its 
limestones,  and  thickly  strewing  the  surface  of 
one  district  with  the  detached  ruins  of  another. 
To  this  lust  of  the  geologic  revolutions  the  deep 
grooves  and  furrows  of  the  rocks  in  the  imme- 
diate neighborhood  of  North  Berwick  belong, 
with  the  immense  boulders  of  travelled  rock 
which  one  occasionally  sees  in  the  interior  on 
moors  and  hill  sides,  or  standing  out  along  the 
sea-coast,  disinterred  by  the  waves  from  amid 
their  banks  of  gravel  or  clay.  But  this  last 
scene  in  the  series  I  find  drawn  to  my  hand, 
though  for  another  purpose,  by  the  poet  who 
produced  the  "  Ancient  Mariner  :"— 

"  Anon  there  come  both  mist  and  snow, 

And  it  grows  wondrous  cold  ; 
And  ice  mast-high  comes  floating  by 
As  green  as  emerald  ; 

"  And  through  the  drifts,  the  snowy  cliffs, 

Doth  send  a  dismal  sheen ; 
Nor  shapes  of  men  nor  beasts  we  ken — 
The  ice  is  all  between. 


GEOLOGY    OP.   THE    BASS.  149 

"  The  ice  is  here,  the  ice  is  there, 

The  ice  is  all  around ; 
It  cracks  and  growls  and  roars  and  howls, 
Like  noises  in  a  swound." 

But  the  day  breaks,  and  the  storm  ceases, 
and  the  submerged  land  lifts  up  its  head  over 
the  sea,  and  the  Bass,  in  the  fair  morn  of  the 
existing  creation,  looms  tall  and  high  to  the 
new-risen  sun — then,  as  now, 

"  An  island  salt  and  bare, 
The  haunt  of  seals  and  ores,  and  sea-mews'  clang." 


ml  tttift  <0rrlEstiistir  listnq  nf  tljt 

BY  THOMAS  M'CRTB,  D.D. 


& 
& 


B 


CIVIL  AND  ECCLESIASTIC  HISTORY 
OF  THE  BASS  * 


OLD  HECTOR  BOECE,  speaking  of  the  Bass 
as  it  appeared  in  his  day,  describes  it  as  "  ane 
wounderful  crag,  risand  within  the  sea,  with  so 
narrow  and  strait  hals  (passage)  that  na  schip 
nor  boit  may  arrive  bot  allanerlie  at  ane  part  of 
it.  This  crag  is  callet  the  Bas ;  unwinnabill 
by  ingine  of  man.  In  it  are  coves,  als  profita- 
ble for  defence  of  men,  as  (if)  thay  were  biggit 
be  crafty  industry.  Everything  that  is  in  that 

*  Description  of  the  engraving:  1.  The  Bastion,  having 
Thomas  Hog's  Cell  on  the  left ;  2.  The  Crane ;  3.  West 
Turret;  4.  Governor's  House;  5.  On  the  east,  the  Prison 
and  Soldiers'  Barracks — on  the  west,  ditto,  containing 
Blackadder's  Cell;  6.  East  Turret;  7.  St.  Baldred's  Cha- 
pel, afterwards  the  Powder  Magazine ;  8.  Garden. 
7* 


154  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

crag  is  ful  of  admiration  and  wounder."*  Such 
as  the  Bass  stood  in  the  beginning  of  the  six- 
teenth century  when  Boece  flourished,  so  does 
it  stand  in  the  nineteenth  century,  unaltered  in 
a  single  feature,  and  still  "ful  of  admiration 
and  wounder."  Eising  abruptly  to  the  height 
of  four  hundred  and  twenty  feet  above  the  level 
of  the  sea:  about  two  miles  from  the  shore,  and 
three  miles  east  from  the  ancient  royal  burgh 
of  North  Berwick,  it  presents  to  the  stranger 
one  of  the  most  striking  objects  on  entering  the 
mouth  of  the  Firth  ;  and  to  the  visito*r  in  sum- 
mer, when  the  dark-browed  rock  is  encircled 
with  myriads  of  sea-fowl,  wheeling  around  it  in 
all  varieties  of  plumage,  and  screaming  in  all  the 
notes  of  the  aquatic  scale,  when  it  may  be  said, 

The  Isle  is  full  of  noises, 
Sounds,  and  wild  airs,  that  give  delight,  and  hurt  not, 

the  scene  appears  like  enchantment,  and  leaves 
an  impression  not  easily  forgotten. 

But  leaving  to  be  described  by  more  compe- 
tent hands,  those  natural  features  of  the  Bass 
which  have  remained  unchanged  by  the  lapse 
of  ages,  it  falls  to  my  lot  to  record  scenes  and 
*  Bellenden's  Boece,  vol.  i.  p.  37. 


HISTORY    OP    THE    BASS.  155 

events  connected  with  its  history  which  are 
past  and  gone — never,  we  hope,  to  return. 
About  half  way  up  the  southern  slope  of  the 
rock,  are  the  remains  of  an  ancient  chapel, 
pointing  to  an  early  date,  and  associated  with 
the  introduction  of  Christianity  into  Scotland. 
At  the  base  of  the  same  slope,  clinging  as  it 
were  to  the  sides  of  the  precipice,  are  the  moul- 
dering walls  of  a  fortification,  within  which  a 
number  of  our  pious  countrymen  were  incarce- 
rated during  the  reigns  of  the  last  Stuarts. 
These  two  ruins,  between  which,  judging  even 
from  their  outward  aspect  and  structure,  there 
occurs  a  chasm  of  some  duration,  are  curiously 
enough  suggestive  of  the  two  periods  to  which 
our  researches  extend  ;  the  interval  between  the 
first  and  the  second,  embracing  what  have  been 
truly  called  the  dark  ages — dark  in  an  histori- 
cal as  well  as  religious  sense ;  for  it  is  a  re- 
markable fact,  that  the  lights  of  history  shine 
more  brightly  on  our  earlier  annals,  when  the 
simplicity  of  the  Christian  faith  was  retained, 
than  on  later  times  when  the  Pope  reigned  pa- 
ramount in  our  land.  The  old  chapel  carries  us 
back  to  these  times  of  primitive  simplicity  ; 


156  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

while  to  the  associations  connected  with  the 
battered  fortress  at  its  base,  this  rock,  barren 
and  insignificant  in  itself,  is  mainly  indebted 
for  the  interest  it  now  possesses  in  the  eyes  of 
Scotsmen. 

The  first  notice  of  the  Bass  in  our  ancient 
records,  is  in  connection  with  one  of  those  reli- 
gious hermits,  who  at  a  very  early  period, 
driven  probably  by  persecution,  or  by  the  wars 
between  the  Scots  and  the  Picts,  selected  it  as 
his  place  of  retreat.  The  name  of  this  hermit 
of  the  Bass  wras  Saint  Baldred.  He  was  of 
Scottish  descent,  and  flourished  at  the  end  of 
the  sixth  and  the  beginning  of  the  seventh  cen- 
tury, having  died  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  606. 
Our  information  concerning  him  is  not  only 
meagre,  but  so  mixed  up  with  the  legends  of 
superstition,  that  it  is  difficult  to  distinguish 
between  the  true  and  the  fabulous.  He  has 
been  termed,  for  example,  Bishop  of  Glasgow, 
and  the  successor  of  St.  Kentigern  or  Mungo, 
the  patron  saint  of  that  city.*  Whereas,  so  far 
as  authentic  history  goes,  there  is  no  evidence 
that  Mungo  was  a  bishop  at  all,  any  more  than 

*  Thorn.  Dempster!  Hist.  Eccl.  Gent.  Scot.  torn.  i.  p.  65. 


HISTORY    OP    THE    BASS.  157 

St.  Columba,  who  is  acknowledged  on  all  hands 
to  have  been  no  more  than  a  Presbyter,  though 
he  was  the  head  of  the  monastery,  or  religious 
college  of  lona.*  This  fact,  resting  on  the  au- 
thority of  the  venerable  Bede,  has  sadly  puz- 
zled our  episcopal  antiquaries,  who  have  been 
obliged  to  resort  to  the  extraordinary  supposi- 
tion, that  St.  Columba  must  have  kept  a  bishop 
in  his  monastery,  as  a  gentleman  may  keep  a 
family  doctor,  expressly  for  the  purpose  of  con- 
ferring holy  orders  on  those  whom  he  sent  forth 
to  preach  the  gospel  !t  Of  one  thing  we  may 
be  certain,  that  until  Palladius  was  sent  by  the 
Pope  in  420,  the  Scots  knew  nothing  about 

*  Dalrymple's  Collections,  p.  136. 

j*  Lloyd,  bishop  of  St.  Asaph,  Historical  Account,  p.  102. 
Keith's  Catalogue  of  Scottish  Bishops,  pref.  20.  In  Spots- 
wood's  list  of  the  bishops  of  Glasgow,  St.  Baldred  is  omit- 
ted, and  from  St.  Mungo,  the  first  bishop  in  599,  there  is  a 
total  blank  to  John  Achaian  in  1129 — the  small  space  of 
about  five  centuries  and  a  half!  And  yet  Keith  could  be 
"  pretty  positive  that  St.  Mungo  was  truly  a  bishop."  Spots- 
wood's  Hist.  App.  p.  46.  Keith's  Cat.  p.  137.  This  is  as  good 
as  his  setting  down  AmpJiibalus  as  the  first  archbishop  of  St. 
Andrews,  when  it  turns  out  that  this  amphibalus  was  the  Latin 
or  rather  Greek  for  the  shag-cloak  of  a  certain  abbot,  which 
had  been  mistaken  by  some  blundering  monk  for  the  proper 
name  of  a  bishop!  Usser,  Antiq.  p.  281,,  Lloyd,  p,  151. 
Dalrymple,  p.  119, 


158  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

bishops.  "  Before  his  arrival,"  says  Fordun, 
"  the  Scots  had  presbyters  and  monks  only,  as 
teachers  of  the  faith  and  ministers  of  the  sacra- 
ments, following  the  rule  of  the  primitive 
church."*  And  it  was  long  after  this  before 
they  could  be  prevailed  on  to  part  with  their 
ancient  pastors,  to  whom  they  were  naturally 
attached  as  having  been  chosen  by  themselves  ; 
"  for,"  says  Bale,  "  they  had  their  bishops  and 
ministers  formerly  elected  according  to  the 
Word,  by  the  Notes  of  the  people,  as  appears  to 
have  been  practised  in  Britain  after  the  manner 
of  Asia  :  but  this  did  not  please  the  Romans, 
who  were  fonder  of  ceremonies,  and  disliked  the 
Asiatics. "t 

In  all  probability,  therefore,  the  veritable  St. 
Baldred  of  the  Bass  was  a  simple  Culdee  pres- 
byter, residing  for  safety  and  retirement  in  the 
island,  as  Columba  did  in  lona,  and  Adamnan, 
another  presbyter,  in  Inchkeith,  but  sallying 
forth  occasionally  to  teach  the  rude  natives  on 

*  Joan.  Fordun,  Scotichronicon,  lib.  iii.  ch.  viii.  His 
words  are,  "  Ante  cujus  adventum,  habebant  Scoti  fidei  doc- 
tores,  ac  sacramentoruin  ministratores,  presbyteros  solum- 
naodo  vel  monachos,  ritum  sequentes  ecclesiae  primitives," 

f  Balrei  Bcrip.  Brit,  apud  Usser.  Brit.  Eccl.  Ant.  p.  417, 


HISTORY    OP    THE    BASS.  159 

the  mainland  the  doctrines  of  Christianity.  "  Im- 
pelled," says  Bishop  Lesley,  "  with  an  ardent 
desire  for  propagating  religion,  he  devoted  him- 
self to  the  Picts,  and  instructed  them  in  the 
way  of  Christ."*  According  to  a  still  more  an- 
cient authority,  Simeon  of  Durham,  "  the  bounds 
of  his  pastoral  care  embraced  the  whole  coun- 
try, from  Lammermoor  to  Inveresk."t  "  In 
these  days,"  says  Bede,  "  people  never  came 
into  a  church  but  only  for  hearing  the  word  of 
prayer.  All  the  care  of  these  Doctors  was  to 
serve  God,  not  the  world — to  feed  souls,  not 
their  own  bodies.  Wherefore  a  religious  habit 
was  then  much  reverenced  ;  and  if  any  priest 
entered  a  village,  incontinently  all  the  people 
would  assemble,  being  desirous  to  hear  the 
word  of  life  ;  for  the  priests  did  not  go  into  vil- 
lages upon  any  other  occasion,  except  to  preach, 
or  visit  the  sick,  or  in  a  word — to  feed  souls. "t 
But  only  mark  how  our  simple  hermit  becomes 
transmogrified,  when  viewed  through  monkish 
spectacles  at  the  distance  of  some  centuries. 

*  Lesl.  Hist.  lib.  iv.  p.  145. 

t  Statistical  Account,  parish  of  Whitekirk,  vol.  ii.  38. 

j  Bed.  Hist.  lib.  iii.  c.  26.     Petrie's  Hist.  p.  61. 


160  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

"  This  suffragan  of  St.  Kentigern,"  says  one 
of  these  chroniclers,  "  nourished  in  Lothian,  in 
virtues  and  in  illustrious  miracles.  Being  emi- 
nently devout  he  renounced  all  worldly  pomp, 
and  following  the  example  of  John  the  Divine, 
resided  in  solitary  places,  and  betook  himself  to 
the  islands  of  the  sea.  Among  these,  he  had 
recourse  to  one  called  Bass:  where  he  led  a  con- 
templative life,  in  which,  for  many  years,  he 
held  up  to  remembrance  the  most  blessed  Ken- 
tigern  his  instructor"  Then  come  the  "  illus- 
trious miracles,"  of  which  the  following  is  a 
specimen :  "  There  was  a  great  rock  between 
the  said  island  (the  Bass)  and  the  adjacent  land, 
which  remained  fixed  in  the  middle  of  the  pas- 
sage, often  causing  shipwrecks.  The  blessed 
Baldred,  moved  by  piety,  ordered  himself  to  be 
placed  on  this  rock,  which  being  done,  at  his  nod 
the  rock  was  immediately  lifted  up,  and  like  a 
ship  driven  by  the  wind,  proceeded  to  the  nearest 
shore,  and  thenceforth  remained  in  the  same 
place  as  a  memorial  of  this  miracle,  and  is  to 
this  day  called  St.  Baldred's  Coble,  or  Cock- 
boat."* And,  indeed,  we  are  informed  by  a 
*  Jamieson's  Hist.  Culdees,  p.  190. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    BASS.  161 


modern  writer  who  has  made  St.  Baldred  the 
hero  of  a  poem,*  that  a  small  rock  at  the  mouth 
of  Aldhame  Bay  still  bears  the  name  of  BOM- 
droris  Boat.  We  have  also  St.  Baldred's 
Cradle,  another  rock,  "which  tradition  says 
elegantly  is  rocked  by  the  winds  and  the  waves  " 
— Baldred's  Well,  and  Baudron's  (the  Scotch 
name  for  Baldred's)  Statue,  which  was  demo- 
lished by  "  an  irreverent  mason."  All  this  cer- 
tainly proves  the  existence  of  such  a  personage, 
and  the  high  repute  in  which  he  was  held  in 
that  neighborhood.  But,  at  the  risk  of  incur- 
ring the  epithet  bestowed  on  the  iconoclastic 
mason,  we  must  say,  with  all  respect  for  St. 
Baldred's  nod,  that  the  agency  of  a  good  sea- 
storm  or  flood-tide  appears  to  us  a  more  proba- 
ble explanation  of  the  cock-boat  story. 

St.  Baldred,  it  would  seem,  died  on  the  Bass,t 
on  the  6th  of  March  in  the  year  606.  Even  at 
that  early  age,  Christians  had  begun  to  pay  a 
superstitious  veneration  to  the  relics  of  distin- 
guished saints ;  and  the  honor  of  having  the 

*  St.  Baldred  of  the  Bass,  and  other  Poems ;  by  James 
Miller.  Edin.  1824. 

t  This  at  least  is  stated  by  Boece,  though  other  accounts 
mention  Aldhame  as  a  place  of  his  death. 


162  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

dead  body  of  the  revered  anchorite  deposited 
among  them  might  naturally  become  an  object 
of  competition  among  his  rude  and  half-civilized 
disciples.  A  story  is  told,  however,  relating  to 
his  burial,  which,  though  not  without  its  paral- 
lels in  after  times,  bears  too  strong  an  impress 
of  its  monkish  origin,  to  be  referred  so  far  back 
as  the  early  date  to  which  it  lays  claim.  The 
legend,  originating  probably  in  some  pious  fraud 
of  subsequent  contrivance,  "  to  avoid  scandalous 
divisions,"  grows  in  pomp  and  circumstance 
even  before  our  eyes,  in  the  ancient  records 
which  have  transmitted  it.  The  first  version 
of  the  story  is  very  simple,  being  to  the  effect, 
"  that  the  people  waxing  wroth,  took  arms,  and 
each  of  them  sought  by  force  to  enjoy  the  same  ; 
and  when  the  matter  came  to  issue,  the  said  sa- 
cred body  was  found  all  whole  in  three  distinct 
places  of  the  house  where  he  died  ;  so  as  all  the 
people  of  each  village  coming  thither  and  carry- 
ing the  same  away,  placed  it  in  their  churches, 
and  kept  it  in  great  honor  and  veneration  for 
the  miracles  that  at  each  place  it  pleased  God 
to  work."  The  next  version  is  more  in  accord- 
ance with  the  solemnity  of  the  occasion  :  "  The 


HISTORY    OF    THE    BASS.  163 

inhabitants  of  the  three  parishes  which  were 
under  his  charge  (Aldhame,  Tynningham,  and 
Preston),  as  soon  as  they  knew  of  his  death, 
assembled  in  three  different  troops  at  Aldhame, 
where  he  breathed  his  last,  severally  begging 
his  body.  But  as  they  could  not  agree  among 
themselves,  they,  by  the  advice  of  a  certain  old 
man,  left  the  body  unburied,  and  separately  be- 
took themselves  to  prayer.  Morning  being 
come,  they  found  three  bodies  perfectly  alike, 
and  all  prepared  with  equal  pomp  for  interment." 
So  saith  the  Breviary  of  Aberdeen.  Time  ad- 
vances, and  the  wonder  gathering  in  bulk,  and 
catching  up  more  rubbish  in  its  way  as  it  rolls 
down  the  dark  ages,  we  are  informed  by  Hector 
Boece  in  1526,  that  the  three  bodies  were  found 
by  the  priests,  when  it  was  hardly  dawn  (sub 
dubiam  lucem) ;  and  that,  by  orders  of  the 
bishop,  they  were  conveyed,  amidst  the  devout 
acclamations  of  the  multitude,  to  the  three  neigh- 
boring churches.*  Another,  improving  on  the 
miracle  still  farther,  assures  us  that  it  was 
effected  "by  the  prayers  of  the  saint  himself;" 
and,  to  crown  the  whole,  John  Major  adduces  it 
*  H.  Boeth.  lib.  ix. ;  Dempster.  Hist.  Eccl.  i.  65. 


164  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

as  an  irrefragable  proof  of  transubstantiation — 
a  doctrine,  by  the  way,  not  even  broached  in  the 
Church  of  Rome  till  three  centuries  after  the 
death  of  Baldred  !  *  This  ridiculous  story,  fit 
only  for  the  regions  of  romance,  has  been  ren- 
dered into  verse  by  the  poet  already  referred  to  : 

"  Each  load  was  borne  most  pompously, 
Decked  with  its  cross  and  rosary; 
While,  one  by  one,  three  corpses  lay 
Like  twin-brothers  transformed  to  clay, 
Moulded  so  nicely  to  each  other, 
The  eye  no  difference  might  discover. 
And  as  the  tapers  flickered  dim, 

The  features  looked  uncouth — 
They  raised  the  sheet  from  Baldred's  face, 

They  turned  the  corpses  where  they  lay ; 
In  each  his  features  clearly  trace, 

Crowned  with  a  tuft  of  silvery  gray. 
They  deemed  his  bright  etherial  flame, 

Which  mortal  form  could  not  control, 
From  heaven  had  held  a  trio  frame 

To  suit  his  zealous  warmth  of  soul."f 

*  Jamieson's  Culdees,  188.  Bishop  Lesley  seems  half- 
ashamed  of  the  story  (De  Reb.  Gest.  lib.  iv.  145).  Archdea- 
con Nicolson,  speaking  of  the  credulity  of  Boece,  says, 
"His  terrible  story  of  a  monstrous  otter,  which  struck 
down  oaks  with  its  steer — the  sea-monks  of  the  Isle  of  Bass 
— and  the  wild  men,  who  could  pull  up  the  tallest  fir  with  as 
much  ease  as  an  ordinary  body  can  root  up  a  turnip — are 
proper  companions."  (Scottish  Hist.  Library,  p.  90 

t  St.  Baldred  of  the  Bass,  part  i.  19,  21. 


HISTORY    OP    THE    BASS.  165 

With  regard  to  the  old  Chapel  of  the  Bass, 
though  it  may  mark  the  spot  of  Baldred's  hum- 
ble cell>  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  it  is  of 
comparatively  modern  date.  It  would  appear 
that  this  island  at  one  time  formed  a  parish, 
and  that  the  "  parish  kirk  in  the  craig  of  the 
Bass"  was  consecrated  in  honor  of  St.  Baldred, 
so  late  as  1542,  when  it  is  more  than  probable 
the  structure  was  first  erected,  under  the  pa- 
tronage of  that  notorious  enemy  of  the  Refor- 
mation, Cardinal  Beaton.* 

Should  any  of  our  readers  be  curious  to  know 
the  subsequent  history  of  this  Chapel,  we  fear 
they  will  be  disappointed.  All  we  can  say 
about  it  is,  that  it  may  have  been  occasionally 
frequented  as  a  place  of  worship  till  the  Refor- 
mation. Tradition  says  that  it  was  customary 
for  the  Cistercian  nuns  of  the  neighboring  ab- 

*  The  following  is  our  authority  : — "  1542.  The  v.  d.  of 
Jan^.  M.  Villielm  Gybsone,  byschop  of  Libariensis  and  Suf- 
fraganeus  to  Dawid  Beton,  Cardynall  and  Archebysschop  of 
Santandros,  consecrat  and  dedicat  the  paris  Kirk  in  the 
craig  of  the  Bass,  in  honor  of  Sant  Baldred,  bysschop  and 
confessor,  in  presens  of  maister  Jhon  Lawder.  arsdene  in 
Teuidaill,  noter  publict."  (Extracta  ex  Chronicis  Scocie, 
p.  255.  Printed  by  the  Abbotsford  Club,  1842.) 


166  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

bey  of  North  Berwick,  to  pay  an  annual  pil- 
grimage to  another  old  chapel  in  the  adjacent 
island  of  Feddery,  the  ruins  of  which  still  re- 
main. They  may  have  sometimes  visited  the 
Bass  chapel  also.  In  1544,  there  were  twenty- 
two  of  these  nuns,  as  we  learn  from  a  document 
which  not  one  of  the  poor  creatures  was  able  to 
subscribe ;  each  of  them,  from  the  prioress  down- 
wards, having  this  added  to  her  signature  by  the 
notary,  "With  my  hand  at  ye  pen."*  They 
must  have  been  reduced  to  great  poverty  too 
by  this  time,  for  their  convent  had  been  pillag- 
ed, burnt,  and  destroyed  in  1529,t  full  thirty 
years  before  the  Reformation,  which  has  been 
unjustly  made  the  scape-goat  of  a  great  many 
offences  of  this  kind.  Our  Reformers  were  ex- 
ceedingly desirous  to  keep  up  all  the  "  kirks  of  the 
nunneries,"  or  places  of  worship  connected  with 
these  establishments,  and  to  have  them  supplied 
with  "qualified  ministers."  And  it  is  remark- 
able how  soon  they  provided  all  the  parishes  of 
Scotland,  either  with  ministers  or  with  readers, 

*  Carte   Monialiuni  cle  North  Benvic,  printed  for  the 
Bannatyne  Club,  p.  60. 
t  Ibid,  p.  47. 


HISTORY    OP    THE    BASS.  167 

a  humbler  class  of  officials,  whose  duty  it  was 
to  read  the  scriptures,  and  the  simple  prayers 
of  Geneva  prefixed  to  the  psalms.  But  they 
had  no  notion  of  keeping  up  service  at  use- 
less and  empty  shrines,  where  there  was  no  po- 
pulation;  and  little  did  they  reck  where  St. 
Baldred  died,  or  in  how  many  places  he  was 
buried.  As  the  Bass,  therefore,  could  furnish 
few  or  no  hearers,  we  are  not  surprised  to  find 
in  the  "  Buik  of  Assignations  of  the  Ministers 
and  Reidars  Stipends  for  the  year  1576,"  the 
following  entry,  "  Bass  and  Auldhame  neidis 
na  reidaris."*  All  we  can  say  of  its  future  fate 
is  comprehended  in  one  sentence,  written  by 
Fraser  of  Brea  in  1677 :  "  Below  the  garden, 
there  is  a  chapel  for  divine  service ;  but  in  re- 
gard no  minister  was  allowed  for  it,  the  ammu- 
nition of  the  garrison  was  kept  therein."  Not- 
withstanding this  "  desecration,"  we  are  inform- 
ed that  a  "  young  lady,  in  the  presence  of  her 
father,  was  here  solemnly  confirmed  in  her  Ro- 
mish faith  and  profession,  and  the  due  ritual 
services  were  gone  through  in  the  presence  of 

*  Register  of  Ministers  1567,  printed  for  Bannatyne  Club, 
p.  74. 


168  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

the   keeper   of  the   Bass  and  his  boat  assist- 
ant."* 

The  earliest  proprietors  of  the  island  on  re- 
cord were  the  ancient  family  of  the  Landers, 
who  from  this  were  usually  designated  the 
Lauders  of  the  Bass.  A  charter  of  it  in  favor 
of  Robert  Lauder  from  William  de  Lambert, 
bishop  of  St.  Andrews,  dates  as  far  back  as 
1316.  According  to  Henry  the  Minstrel,  Ro- 
bert Lauder  accompanied  Wallace  in  many  of 
his  exploits.  In  the  aisle  of  the  lairds  of  the 
Bass,  in  the  old  church  of  North  Berwick,  a 
tombstone  once  bore  the  following  inscription,  in 
Latin- Saxon  characters — "  Here  lies  the  good 
Robert  Lauder^  the  great  Laird  of  Cong  alt  on 
and  the  Bass,  who  died  May  1311."  The 
crest  they  assumed  from  it  was  quite  character- 
istic— a  solan  goose  sitting  on  a  rock ;  but  the 
motto  was  rather  a  burlesque  on  the  original, 
Sub  umbra  alarum  tuarum.^  The  island  con- 
tinued in  the  possession  of  this  ancient  family 
for  about  five  centuries. t 

*  Statistical  Account,  North  Berwick,  vol.  ii.  p.  331. 

f  Jamieson's  Illustrations  of  Slezer. 

|  In  the  Appendix  to  this  part,  the  reader  will  find  the 


HISTORY    OF    THE    BASS,  169 

It  does  not,  however,  appear  when  it  first  be- 
gan to  be  used  as  a  "  strength"  or  fortified  place. 
The  first  time  we  hear  of  it  having  been  thus 
employed  is  in  the  year  1405,  when  it  afforded 
a  temporary  retreat  to  James,  the  youngest  son 
of  Robert  III.,  before  embarking,  under  the 
guardianship  of  the  Earl  of  Orkney,  on  that  ill- 
fated  expedition,  which  issued  in  his  being 
taken  by  the  English,  and  detained  nineteen 
years  in  captivity.  That  even  at  that  early  pe- 
riod there  was  a  castle,  or  some  fortification  on 
the  island,  is  a  supposition  strengthened  by  an- 
other fact.  On  the  return  to  Scotland  of  that 
young  prince,  nowr  James  the  First,  in  the  year 
1424,  wre  are  informed  that  Walter  Stewrart, 
eldest  son  of  Murdac  or  Murdo,  Duke  of  Alba- 
ny, who  had  acted  as  Regent,  was  arrested  and 
"  sent  prisoner  to  the  Castle  of  the  Bass  ;"* 
and  soon  after,  his  father  was  committed  to  Carl- 
raverock  Castle,  and  his  mother,  the  duchess, 
to  Tantallan,  "  places  remote  from  the  seat  of 

above-mentioned  charter,  and  a  full  account  of  the  family 
of  Lauder,  kindly  furnished  for  our  volume  by  the  lineal 
descendant  and  representative  of  the  family,  Sir  Thomas 
Dick  Lauder. 

*  Leslaei  Historia,  lib.  vii.  p.  262. 
8 


170  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

their  feudal  influence."*  This  Walter  Stewart 
was  the  first  prisoner  of  the  Bass  that  we  read 
of  in  history — a  very  different  character,  indeed, 
from  those  whom  the  sketch  at  the  end  has 
introduced  to  the  readers  of  this  volume.  He 
was  a  spoilt  child,  and  a  profligate  youth,  having, 
with  his  brothers,  abandoned  himself  to  every 
kind  of  licentiousness  during  the  loose  adminis- 
tration of  his  father,  who,  like  old  Eli,  connived 
at,  and  ultimately  suffered  for,  their  misconduct. 
"  The  old  man  had  a  bird,"  says  Buchanan, 
"  which  he  highly  prized,  of  the  falcon  species, 
which  Walter  having  often  asked  from  his 
father,  and  having  been  unable  to  obtain,  at  last, 
in  contempt,  snatched  from  his  feeble  hand,  and 
wrung  off  its  neck.  To  which  outrage,  his  father 
thus  replied,  c  Since  you  cannot  submit  to  obey 
me,  I  shall  bring  another,  whom  both  you  and  I 
will  be  forced  to  obey  :'  and  from  that  time  he 
bent  his  whole  mind  to  restore  his  relation 
James. "t  Within  a  year  the  father  and  his  two 
sons  were  beheaded  at  Stirling.  A  lively  fancy 
might  draw  an  affecting  picture  of  the  old  duch- 

*  Pinkerton,  Hist.  vol.  i.  p.  113, 
t  Buch.  Hist.,  lib.  x.  §  25. 


HISTORY    OP    THE    BASS.  171 

ess,  as  she  gazed  from  the  opposite  towers  of 
Tantallan  on  the  ocean  prison  that  held  her 
wayward  son,  and  describe  her  feelings  as  she 
saw  him  conveyed  away  to  suffer  an  ignominious 
death.  But  our  Scottish  ladies  of  that  period 
wrere  made  of  sterner  stuff  than  we  are  apt  to 
imagine.  "  There  is  a  report  current,"  says 
Buchanan,  "  although  I  do  not  find  it  mentioned 
by  any  historian,  that  the  king  sent  the  heads 
of  her  father,  husband  and  children,  to  Isabella, 
on  purpose  to  try  whether  so  violent  a  woman, 
in  a  paroxysm  of  grief,  as  sometimes  happens, 
might  not  betray  the  secrets  of  her  soul ;  but 
she,  though  affected  at  the  unexpected  sight, 
used  no  intemperate  expressions."  I  have  an 
old  manuscript  which  records  this  piece  of  sav- 
age brutality,  and  adds  that  the  old  lady  "  said 
nothing,  but  that  they  worthilie  died,  gif  that 
whilk  wes  laid  against  them  were  trew  /" 

That  the  Bass  continued  as  one  of  the 
strengths  or  fortresses  of  Old  Scotland,  during 
the  sixteenth  century,  we  have  abundant  evi- 
dence. Boece  describes  it  in  his  day  (1526) 
"  as  a  castle  in  Lothian,  fortified  by  nature  in 
the  most  extraordinary  manner,  being  situated 


172  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

on  a  very  high  rock,  more  than  two  miles  from  the 
shore,  and  surrounded    on   every  .side  by 
sea."*     In  1548.  after  the  treaty  of  ]><•. 
ley  says,  the  French    of;'  Monsieur  de 

.•nes,  de  la  Chapelle,  and  sundrie  ut; 
capitanis,  remanit  still  in  the  countroy.  and 
travellit  throughout  the  most  pairt  of  the 
realme,  visiting  the  situation  of  the  townis,  the 
strengthis  of  Durnbartano.  Edinburgh.  Tamp- 
tallon,  the  Bas,  Dumbar,  Fast  Caste!  1.  Dunnot- 
tar,  Phindlatir,  and  many  utheris,  as  well  boith 
upone  the  coast  of  the  eist  and  west  seyis. 
They  affearmed  they  had  never  sene  in  ony 
countrey  so  mony  strengthis  to  natour,  within 
ane  prince's  dominion,  as  was  within  the  real  me 
of  Scotland."!  The  island,  with  its  castle,  appears 
still  to  have  remained  the  private  property  of 
the  Lauders.  In  1581,  James  the  Sixth  paid 
a  visit  to  the  Bass,}:  and  seems  to  have  cone 

*  Boece's  Chronicles,  as  quoted  by  Demps  > , .  i  b  - 

lished  by  Holinshed,  chap.  ix. 

t  Bishop  Lesley's  Historic,  Bannatyne  Club  edit,  p 

$  In  the  Treasurer's  Accounts,  in  tho  n -i-n  of  fome  ,  \  J. 
under  the  above  date,  :  id  :— 

"  Item,  To  Alexander  Zoung,  his  Hienes  servitour  for  his 
(Jrace'0  extraordinar  expenses  in  his  jornay  tawardis  the 


HISTORY    OF    THE    BASS.  173 

ed  a  strong  desire  to  obtain  possession  of  it  for 
the  crown.  It  is  said  he  offered  the  laird  what- 
ever he  pleased  to  ask  for  it ;  upon  which  Lau- 
der  replied,  "  Your  Majesty  must  e'en  resign  it 
to  me,  for  I'll  have  the  auld  crag  back  again.7'* 
Shortly  after  this,  however,  it  fell  into  other 
1  lands.  In  1626,  Charles  L,  for  what  reason 
we  do  not  learn,  but  very  likely  on  no  better 
ground  than  his  own  sovereign  pleasure,  insti- 
tuted a  claim  to  the  possession  of  the  rock, 
which  was  destined  to  share  the  fate  of  many 
otlicir  claims  made  by  that  infatuated  mon- 
arch.t 

In  the  course  of  this  century,  there  occurs  a 
curious  episode  in  the  history  of  the  Bass,  con- 
nected with  the  public  records  of  the  Church 
of  Scotland.  In  consequence  of  the  English 


.s.s,  conforms  to  his  Iliencs  precept,  as  the  samin  with  his 
acquittance  producit  vpon  compt  proportis,  xl.  li."  (£40 : 
0  :  0.) 

*  Jlislory  <>f  Dmibar,  by  James  Miller. 

f  Anionir  his  Instructions  to  tin-  President  of  the  Session, 
10th  November,  1020,  is  the  following: — "  That  you  causso 
prosecute  our  right  concerning  the  Bass,  with  all  expedi- 
tion, for  effectuatting  of  that  end  you  have  from  us."  Bal- 
four's  Annales,  vol.  ii.  p.  160. 


: 


174  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

invasion  under  Cromwell  in  1650,  it  was  thought 
advisable  to  seek  a  shelter  for  these  valuable 
documents  in  the  fortress  of  the  Bass  ;  and  in 
April  1651,  a  requisition  was  sent  to  the  keep- 
er, "  that  the  Bass  might  be  made  secure  for 
the  registers,  as  it  had  been  in  a  former  day 
of  calamity.5'  And  moreover,  "  the  Laird  of 
Wauchton,  to  whom  that  strength  belongs, 
being  personallie  present,  most  gladlie  offered 
to  receave  them,  promising  his  outmost  care  to 
secure  and  preserve  them  from  all  danger." 
But  alas  !  the  Bass,  as  well  as  all  the  other 
"strengths'7  of  Scotland,  had  to  surrender  to 
the  indomitable  Cromwell  before  that  year  had 
expired  ;  and  in  April  27,  1652,  his  Parliament 
order,  "  That  Major-General  Dean  cause  the 
public  Records  of  the  Kirk,  taken  in  the  said 
isle  (the  Bass),  to  be  packed  up  in  cask,  and 
sent  to  the  Tower  of  London,  there  to  remain 
in  the  same  custody  that  the  other  Records 
that  came  from  Scotland  are."  These,  it  is  be- 
lieved, were  the  same  records  which,  after  tra- 
velling back  to  Scotland,  were  again  conveyed  to 
England,  and  perished  in  the  conflagration 


HISTORY    OP    THE    BASS.  175 

which  occurred  in  the  House  of  Commons.  Octo- 
ber 1834.* 

But  in  the  progress  of  events,  "  the  auld 
crag"  was  destined  to  change  both  masters  and 
inmates.  Having  fallen  into  the  possession, 
first  of  the  Laird  of  Waughton,  and  thereafter 
of  Sir  Andrew  Ramsay,  Provost  of  Edinburgh, 
it  was,  in  October,  1671,  purchased  from  the 
latter  by  Lauderdale,  in  the  name  of  the  Gov- 
ernment, to  become  a  state  prison ;  and,  as 
Kirkton  observes,  "a  dear  bargain  it  was."t 
The  transaction  is  thus  referred  to  in  one  of  the 
brochures  of  that  period  : — "  Sir  Andrew  Ram- 
say, having  neither  for  a  just  price,  nor  by  the 
fairest  means,  got  a  title  to  a  bare  insignificant 
rock  in  the  sea,  called  the  Bass,  and  to  a  public 
debt,  both  belonging  to  the  Lord  of  Wachton ; 
my  Lord  Lauderdale,  to  gratifie  Sir  Andrew, 
moves  the  king,  upon  the  pretence  of  this  pub- 
lic debt,  and  that  the  Bass  was  a  place  of 
strength  (like  to  a  castle  in  the  moon),  and  of 
great  importance  (the  only  nest  of  solan  geese 

*  Booke  of  the  Universall  Kirk  (Bannatyne  edition),  vol. 
iii. ;  Preface,  6 ;  Appendix,  30. 
•f  Kirkton's  History,  by  Sharpe,  p.  361. 


176  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

in  these  parts),  to  buy  the  rock  from  Sir  An- 
drew at  the  rate  of  £4000  sterling,  and  then 
obtains  the  command  and  profits  of  it,  amount- 
ing to  more  than  £100  sterling  yearly,  to  be 
bestowed  upon  himself."*  Lauderdale  thus  be- 
came, among  his  many  other  titles  of  honor, 
"  Captain  of  the  Bass."  "  But,"  says  honest 
Kirkton,  "  the  use  the  king  made  of  it  was,  to 
make  it  a  prison  for  the  Presbyterian  minis- 
ters ;  and  some  of  them  thought,  when  they  died 
in  the  prison  (as  Mr.  John  Blackadder  did),  they 
glorified  God  in  the  islands.  But  it  became  a 
rule  of  practice  among  that  sort  of  people,  when- 
ever any  of  them  was  called  before  the  Councill, 
that  either  they  behoved  to  satisfie  the  bishop, 
which  never  ane  of  them  did,  or  else  goe  to  the 
Bass  ;  so  all  of  them  refused  to  appear  ;  and 
our  governors  expected  no  more  respect  or  obe- 
dience to  their  summonds."t 

*  An  Accompt  of  Scotland's  Grievances,  by  reason  of  the 
Duke  of  Lauderdale's  Ministrie,  p.  18.  Sir  George  Macken- 
zie, commenting  on  this  transaction  between  Lauderdale 
and  Ramsay,  who  at  the  same  time  "  obtained  200  lib.  ster- 
ling per  annum  settled  upon  the  Provost  of  Edinburgh," 
observes,  "  Thus  they  were  kind  to  one  another  upon  his 
Majesty's  expenses,"  Hist,  of  Scotland,  p.  247. 

t  Kirkton's  Hist.,  p.  361. 


HISTORY    OP    THE    BASS.  177 

Having  now  brought  down  the  history  of  the 
Bass  Castle  to  the  time  when  it  was  devoted  to 
this  base  use,  let  us  endeavor  to  transport  our- 
selves back  to  the  days  when  this  Rock,  now 
the  undisputed  abode  of  the  wild  birds  of  the 
ocean,  was  the  Patmos  of  so  many  godly  men, 
and  when  these  walls,  now  mouldering  into  de- 
cay, formed  their  dungeon. 

Th?  reign,  of  persecution  has  commenced — a 
persecution  which,  in  various  respects,  stands 
without  a  parallel  in  the  history  of  the  Church. 
The  parties  were  Protestants ;  and,  with  the 
exception  of  the  partial  doings  of  Elizabeth  and 
Laud,  it  may  be  said  to  have  enjoyed  the  unen- 
viable distinction  of  being  the  only  bona  fide 
instance  of  Protestant  persecution  on  record. 
The  career  of  the  Romish  Church  has  been  so 
marked  with  blood,  that  we  are  no  more  sur- 
prised at  the  recital  of  her  atrocities,  than  at 
those  of  a  beast  of  prey ;  while,  on  hearing  of 
Protestants  imbruing  their  hands  in  the  blood 
of  martyrs,  we  are  shocked  and  startled  as  at 
the  murderous  deeds  of  the  frenzied  maniac. 
To  look  upon  the  struggle  merely  as  the  result 
of  a  mad  attempt,  on  the  one  hand,  to  enforce 


178  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

Prelacy  on  an  unwilling  people,  and  of  a  bigoted 
adherence,  on  the  other  hand,  to  the  Presbyte- 
rian polity,  is  to  take,  not  only  a  superficial  and 
unphilosophical,  but  a  most  erroneous  view  of 
the  matter.  True,  the  contending  parties  may 
be  ranged  under  the  general  distinction  of  Pre- 
latists  and  Presbyterians  ;  but  in  the  prosecu- 
tion of  the  crusade  against  the  latter,  there  was 
a  combination  of  the  elements  of  evil,  aAd  an 
exhibition  of  the  darkest  and  the  meanest  pas- 
sions of  our  nature,  seldom  if  ever  equalled. 
Presbytery,  no  doubt,  was  never  a  favorite  with 
our  Scottish  rulers,  from  the  time  that  it  began 
to  assert  the  supremacy  of  Christ  as  the  Head 
of  the  Church,  and  the  consequent  independence 
of  the  courts  of  his  house.  Yet  it  admits  of 
being  demonstrated,  that  it  was  not  the  govern- 
ment but  the  godliness  of  Presbytery,  not  the 
mere  form  of  its  polity  but  the  fidelity  of  its 
moral  discipline,  that  rendered  it  odious  to  those 
in  power.  It  is  said  that  James  the  Sixth 
never  forgave  the  rough  handling  of  his  barons 
at  the  Raid  of  Ruthven,  and  more  especially  the 
speech  of  the  Master  of  Glamis,  when  placing 
his  foot  at  the  door  to  prevent  the  egress  of  the 


HISTORY    OF    THE    BASS.  179 

weeping  young  monarch,  lie  said,  "  It  is  no 
matter  of  his  tears  :  better  that  bairns  should 
weep  than  bearded  men."  And  there  is  good 
reason  for  thinking  that  he  would  sooner  for- 
get the  rude  shaking  of  his  sleeve  by  Andrew 
Melville,  when  he  called"  him  "  God's  silly  vas- 
sal." than  he  would  the  faithful  rebukes  of  the 
princely  Robert  Bruce,  before  whom  he  trem- 
bled as  a  naughty  urchin  under  the  rod  of  his 
teacher.  That  his  dissolute  grandson,  Charles 
Second,  had  his  eye  more  on  the  unaccommo- 
dating discipline  of  Presbytery,  than  on  the 
plainness  of  its  ritual,  when  he  pronounced  it 
"  not  a  fit  religion  for  a  gentleman,"*  it  would 

*  As  a  specimen  of  the  "gentlemanly"  spirit  of  Charles' 
friends,  the  following  trick,  practised  by  the  Lord  Advocate 
on  an  Edinburgh  merchant,  Robert  Gray,  who  was  brought 
before  the  Council,  on  the  accusation  of  a  worthless  woman, 
as  a  harborer  of  the  Presbyterian  ministers,  may  be  given. 
Gray  refused  to  implicate  any ;  upon  which  the  advocate 
took  his  ring  from  his  finger,  on  pretence  of  looking  at '  it, 
and  sent  it  to  his  wife,  instructing  the  messenger  to  tell  her 
that  her  husband  had  discovered  all  he  knew,  and  desired  her 
to  do  the  same,  in  token  of  which  he  had  sent  his  ring.  The 
consequence  was,  that  Mrs.  Gray  made  disclosures  which 
involved  some  excellent  ladies  in  town  ;  on  hearing  of  which 
her  husband  sickened  and  died.  One  of  these  ladies,  a  min- 
ister's widow,  was  actually  threatened  with  the  torture  of  the 


180  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

be  equally  easy  to  prove.  Nor  need  it  be  mat- 
ter of  surprise  that, our  proud  nobility  and  gen- 
try, bred  up  with  all  the  ideas  of  feudal  dignity 
and  importance,  should  have  winced  under  a 
regimen  which  bore  with  equal  pressure  on  them 
and  the  meanest  of  their  dependents.  By  these 
classes,  and  by  the  great  bulk  of  the  communi- 
ty, which  then  as  well  as  now,  though  nominally 
Christian,  had  not  been  brought  under  the 
sanctifying  influence  of  the  truth,  the  Restora- 
tion must  have  been  hailed  as  a  happy  relief 
from  all  moral  restraint.  In  the  Prelatic 
Church  of  Charles,  there  was  not  (as,  indeed, 
how  could  there  be  under  such  a  Head  ?)  any 
ecclesiastic  discipline.  It  was  the  age  of  polit- 
ical thraldom  and  moral  libertinism.  The 
Church  was  powerless  for  good,  and  contented 
herself  with  shaking  her  palsied  arm  in  the 
faces  of  a  few  unfortunate  witches.  The  irre- 
ligious and  profane,  formerly  the  objects  of  her 
discipline,  remained  unmolested  ;  while  all  the 
power  of  the  Church,  transferred  to  the  civil 

boots,  which  were  laid  before  her.  She  stood  resolute,  and 
would  have  suffered  had  not  Rothes  interposed,  and,  in  his 
jeering  way,  remarked  to  the  Council,  that  it  was  not  proper 
for  ladies  to  wear  boots. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    BASS.  181 

government,   was   bent  against  the  pious  and 
the  faithful. 

With  this  prevailing  current  of  prejudice 
against  godliness,  there  was  conjoined,  in  the 
case  of  some  of  the  persecutors,  all  the  bitter- 
ness of  partizans,  and  the  malignity  of  self-con- 
victed apostates  ;  and  these  feelings,  meeting 
like  two  conflicting  tides,  were  chafed  into  abso- 
lute fury  by  the  opposition  made  to  their  mea- 
sures on  the  part  of  those  with  whom  they  had 
once  co-operated,  and  whose  testimonies  to  the 
truth,  held  up  before  them  as  they  sat  on  the 
bench,  and  sealed  by  death  on  the  scaifold,  must 
have  rung  in  their  ears  like  the  voice  of  the  ac- 
cusing angel  before  the  throne  of  Heaven.  In 
no  other  way  can  we  account  for  the  atrocious 
conduct  of  Sharpe  and  his  brother  prelates. 
But  these  feelings  of  guilty  consciousness  ap- 
pear to  have  been  shared,  more  or  less,  by  the 
whole  of  the  unprincipled  junto  to  whom  the 
administration  of  affairs  in  our  country  was 
then  entrusted ;  and  they  were  exasperated,  in 
no  small  degree,  by  the  high  ground  which  the 
martyrs  assumed.  Unlike  the  Hugonots  of 
France,  who  sought  only  toleration  for  their  re- 
9 


182  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

ligion,  the  Covenanters  of  Scotland  pleaded  for 
the  ascendancy  of  theirs,  and  that,  not  only  on 
the  ground  of  its  intrinsic  truth,  but  on  what 
their  enemies  must  have  felt  much  more  keenly, 
"  even  as  a  sword  in  their  bones,"  on  the  ground 
of  the  national  pledge  in  the  Covenant,  which 
they  had  perfidiously  violated,  and  ignominious- 
ly  burnt. 

Another  feature,  pre-eminently  visible  in 
this  persecution,  was  its  cool,  unprincipled  vil- 
lany.  Under  the  pretext  of  fines  and  confisca- 
tions for  treason,  this  bloated  vampire  sat  for 
twenty-eight  years  fattening  on  the  spoil,  and 
sucking  the  blood  of  a  prostrate  nation.  A 
spirit  of  insatiable  avarice,  too  ravenous  to 
think  of  concealing  itself,  seized  on  all  the 
functionaries  of  Government,  from  the  bench  of 
justice,  where  Lauderdale  sat  with  an  indul- 
gence in  his  pocket,  chuckling  at  the  gentlemen 
brought  before  him  to  pay  their  fines  for  acces- 
sion to  conventicles,  and  crying,  "  Now,  gentle- 
men, ye  know  the  price  of  a  conventicle,  and 
shame  fall  them  that  tires  first ;"  down  to  the 
military  ruffian,  who,  on  being  asked  by  the 
gentleman  he  was  robbing,  why  he  was  thus 


HISTORY    OF    THE    BASS.  183 

treated,  replied,  "  Because  ye  have  gear,  and  I 
maun  ha?  a  share  o't."  Add  to  all  this,  the 
total  perversion  of  justice,  by  converting  acts 
of  religion  into  acts  of  treason — the  employment 
of  spies  and  informers — imprisonment  for  years 
without  any  cause  being  assigned  or  crime  sub- 
stantiated— witnesses  suborned — juries  packed, 
and  browbeaten  into  a  verdict  against  their  con- 
science— tortures  inflicted  with  the  view  of 
inculpating  the  prisoner  or  his  friends — confes- 
sions made  upon  security  of  the  public  faith 
and  the  king's  honor,  and  afterwards  shame- 
lessly adduced  upon  oath  against  the  criminal — 
multitudes  indicted,  tried,  and  executed  upon 
the  same  day,  and  intercessions  met  with  the 
reply,  that  "  they  should  have  no  time  to  pre- 
pare for  heaven,  for  hell  was  too  good  for  them" 
— drums  ordered  to  be  beat  at  the  execution, 
to  drown  the  dying  words  of  the  martyrs  ;  and 
the  least  expression  of  sympathy  in  the  crowd, 
exposing  the  individual  to  be  dragged  to  the 
/scaffold,  with  other  traits  too  tedious  even  to 
enumerate.  Such  a  scene  of  complicated  vil- 
lany  and  cruelty,  under  mask  of  law,  it  is  be- 
lieved, has  never  been  surpassed. 


184  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

In  fine,  Popery — as  if  it  could  not  be  absent 
from  a  scene  so  congenial  to  its  spirit — Popery, 
in  the  person  of  James,  Duke  of  York,  after- 
wards James  VII.,  must  lend  its  aid  to  finish 
the  tragedy.  This  personage,  himself  the 
greatest  criminal  in  the  kingdom,  must  stigma- 
tise the  Presbyterians  as  caitiffs,  not  fit  for 
human  converse,  and  propose  to  eradicate  them 
entirely ;  affirming  withal,  that  "  it  never  would 
be  well  with  Scotland,  till  all  the  country  on 
the  south  of  the  Forth  were  made  a  hunting 
field."  And,  truly,  what  with  leaving  them  to 
be  butchered  in  the  open  fields  by  his  soldiers 
without  form  or  process  of  law — transporting 
them  as  slaves  to  Virginia,  and  occasionally 
scuttling  a  ship  on  its  passage,  and  thus  saving 
the  expense  of  the  freight  by  drowning  the 
passengers  wholesale — he  bade  fair  soon  to 
realise  his  expectations. 

Base  and  barbarous  as  these  measures  were, 
we  form  a  very  inadequate  idea  of  the  misery 
they  occasioned,  if  we  look  no  farther  than  the 
victims  who  suffered  under  them,  to  the  spoiling 
of  their  goods  or  the  loss  of  their  lives.  These 
were  comparatively  few,  and  honor  to  their 


HISTORY    OP    THE    BASS.  185 

memory  !  But  what  shall  we  think  of  the  mul- 
titudes, who,  to  escape  these  sufferings,  "  made 
shipwreck  of  the  faith  and  a  good  conscience,77 
by  swearing  illegal  and  ensnaring  oaths,  re- 
nouncing the  Covenant,  and  owning  the  usurped 
authority  of  the  King  in  the  matters  of  God  ? 
The  moral  and  spiritual  mischief  thus  wrought 
is  not  so  easily  calculated  ;  but  the  melancholy 
truth  is,  that  in  this  way  the  consciences  of 
entire  districts  of  the  country  were  debauched, 
in  consequence  of  which  the  public  spirit  of 
Scotland  was  broken,  and  losing  the  self-respect 
that  attends  conscious  integrity,  as  she  would, 
but  for  England,  have  lain  at  the  feet  of  the 
despot,  so  she  was  hardly  able,  even  after  her 
deliverance  at  the  Revolution,  to  assert  her 
just  rights,  either  in  Church  or  State. 

For  the  stringent  and  sanguinary  enactments 
passed  against  conventicles,*  a  poor  plea  may 
be  set  up  on  the  ground  of  maintaining  the  pub- 
lic peace ;  but  these  execrable  bonds  imposed 
on  the  consciences  of  good  men,  admit  of  not 
the  shadow  of  apology.  Yet  were  they  enforced 

*  These  will  be  found  noticed  in  the  Introduction  to  the 
"  Martyrs  of  the  Bass,"  by  the  Rev,  James  Anderson. 


186  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

with  the  most  unrelenting  severity.  When  a 
deputation  of  the  gentlemen  of  the  west  waited 
on  the  Council,  protesting  their  loyalty,  but 
petitioning  against  this  imposition,  Burnet  in- 
forms us  that  "  this  put  Duke  Lauderdale  in 
such  a  frenzy,  that  at  the  Council  table,  he 
made  bare  his  arms  above  his  elbows,  and  swore 
by  Jehovah,  that  he  would  make  them  enter 
into  these  bonds  !"  Now,  if  we  take  into  view, 
what  is  not  generally  known,  that  at  this  time  our 
rulers  were  so  conscious  the  public  mind  had 
been  thoroughly  vitiated  by  false  swearing,  that 
they  passed  a  law  rendering  parole  evidence  in- 
admissible in  civil  matters  affecting  property — 
what  are  we  to  think  of  these  same  men  impos- 
ing their  bonds  on  others,  who,  they  well  knew, 
"  feared  an  oath  "  so  much  that  some  of  them, 
even  to  save  themselves  from  death,  would 
scruple  to  say,  "  God  save  the  King,"  lest  this 
should  be  understood  to  involve  them  in  the  guilt 
of  perjury  !  The  meshes  of  the  legal  net  were 
admirably  contrived  to  catch  the  good  fish,  and 
allow  the  bad  to  escape. 

Some  have  represented  these  odious  imposi- 
tions as  a  just  retaliation  on  the  Presbyterians 


HISTORY    OF    THE    BASS.  187 


for  having,  in  their  day  of  power,  enforced  the 
Covenant.  But,  without  vindicating  that  step, 
we  can  hardly  suppose  that  any  candid  person 
would  seriously  state  a  comparison  between  the 
two  cases.  The  Jews  were  far  mistaken  when 
"  their  fear  of  God  was  taught  by  the  command- 
ment of  men ;"  but  how  different  was  this  from 
"  compelling  the  Christians  to  blaspheme  ?" 
Among  those  who  may  have  taken  the  Cove- 
nant against  their  will,  how  few  could  say  that 
they  had  taken  it  against  their  conscience  ? 
How  much  fewer,  that  they  had  suffered  for 
refusing  to  take  it  ?  And,  however  far  wrong 
it  may  have  been  to  urge  the  irreligious  to  come 
under  an  engagement  to  maintain  a  profession 
which  they  disliked  (which  was  very  rarely 
done),  can  this  for  a  moment  be  compared  with 
forcing  a  conscientious  people  to  forswear  them- 
selves, by  renouncing  a  solemn  obligation  which 
they  had  voluntarily  incurred  ? 

To  return  from  this  digression,  we  may  now 
observe  that,  among  the  other  methods  of  exter- 
mination to  which  the  enemies  of  the  Presbyte- 
rians resorted,  one  of  the  most  effectual,  and 
least  merciful,  was  imprisonment.  In  these  days, 


188  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

the  deprivation  of  personal  liberty  formed  the 
most  tolerable  portion  of  the  prisoner's  doom. 
Immured  in  cells  of  the  most  diminutive  propor- 
tions, and  often  crowded  to  excess — in  living 
sepulchres,  from  which  both  light  and  air  were 
systematically  excluded,  and  where  damp  and 
cold,  the  squalor  carceris,  and  every  species  of 
discomfort,  were  considered  essential  parts  of 
the  punishment — multitudes,  it  may  be  easily 
believed,  perished,  unpitied  and  unknown,  in 
these  frightful  abodes,  under  the  hands  of  brutal 
jailors,  and  amidst  untold  privations.  But,  at 
the  time  we  write  of,  all  the  prisons  and  tolbooths 
of  Scotland  were  filled  to  overflowing  ;  it  was 
found  necessary  to  provide  more  accommodation 
for  the  increasing  numbers  of  delinquents  ;  and 
the  Bass,  from  its  proximity  to  the  capital,  its 
security,  and  perhaps  its  dignity  as  a  castle, 
was  selected  as  a  fitting  receptacle  for  the  lead- 
ing men,  and  more  especially  the  Presbyterian 
ministers. 

A  slight  survey  of  the  ruins  of  the  fortress, 
as  they  now  stand  in  na,ked  desolation,  is  suffi- 
cient to  corroborate  the  testimonies  of  the  prison- 
ers, and  to  show  that  they  had  little  reason  to  con- 


HISTORY    OF    THE    BASS.  189 

gratulate  themselves  on  the  selection  of  their 
marine  prison-house.  Placed  near  the  base  of 
the  overhanging  precipice,  it  must  have  formed 
a  sort  of  tank  or  reservoir  for  the  perpetual 
drippings  from  above,  while  it  was  washed  by 
the  spray  from  the  ocean  below,  and  entitled  by 
exposure  to  the  full  benefit  of  the  eastern  blasts. 
What  is  still  pointed  out  by  some  as  "  Black- 
adder's  cell,"  is  a  dormitory  about  seven  feet  by 
eight,  situated  on  the  ramparts,  with  a  small 
window  facing  the  south.  If  so,  he  was  better 
appointed  than  his  brethren  in  the  inner  prison, 
the  remains  of  which,  though  unroofed  and  un- 
floored,  may  be  still  traced.  On  a  late  visit  to 
the  ruins,  I  was  struck  by  observing,  that  in 
the  western  gable  of  this  room  is  one  small  win- 
dow which  had  served  for  light,  but  which  is 
placed  at  such  a  height  above  the  floor  that  the 
prisoners  could  see  neither  earth  nor  sky  from 
it ;  while  in  the  eastern  gable,  there  is  an- 
other window  placed  at  a  lower  elevation,  but 
so  contrived  that  it  had  looked  only  into  a  nar- 
row passage,  formed  by  a  wall  built  up  against 
it,  and  enlightened  by  a  higher  aperture  in  that 
wall.  By  this  piece  of  ingenious  cruelty^  the 


190  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

poor  prisoners  within  would  be  furnished  with  a 
dim  and  borrowed  light,  and  at  the  same  time 
prevented  from  beguiling  their  captivity  by 
gazing  on  "  mountain,  tower,  or  town,"  or  even 
on  that  heaven  to  which  all  their  hopes  were 
turned,  and  the  straggling  beams  of  which  were 
so  scantily  afforded  them.  At  the  same  time, 
the  sentries  or  keepers  might  at  any  time,  by 
creeping  along  this  passage,  manage,  through 
the  inner  grating,  to  observe  the  movements, 
and  hear  the  conversations  of  their  prisoners. 
There  can  be  no  question  regarding  "  the  lowest 
cell  in  the  dungeon,"  to  which  Thomas  Hog  of 
Kiltearn  was  consigned,  through  the  tender 
mercies  of  Archbishop  Sharp.  An  arched  stair- 
case, part  of  which  still  remains,  leads  dawn 
under  ground  from  the  east  end  of  the  castle,  to 
what  was  anciently  called  the  Bastion,  on  arriv- 
ing at  which  the  visitor  finds  himself  in  a 
hideous  cavern,  arched  over-head,  dank  and 
dripping,  with  an  opening  towards  the  sea  which 
dashes  within  a  few  feet  below.  It  was  in  this 
"  horrible  pit,"  then,  obviously  the  "  dungeon- 
keep  "  of  the  old  castle  in  the  days  of  its  glory, 
that  the  good  man  was  deposited;  and  no 


HISTORY    OF    THE    BASS,  191 

wonder  that  when  his  enfeebled  frame  was 
dragged  down  that  subterranean  passage,  and 
stretched  in  this  dismal  den,  he  should  have 
concluded  that  his  enemies  had  done  their  worst 
—had  reached  the  end  of  their  chain — and  that 
the  deepening  darkness  of  the  night  betokened 
the  near  approach  of  the  dawn.* 

But  let  us  hear  the  description  of  the  rock,  as 
given  by  one  of  the  sufferers  themselves,  Mr. 
Fraser  of  Brea  : — "  The  Bass  is  a  very  high 
rock  in  the  sea,  two  miles  distant  from  the 
nearest  point  of  the  land  which  is  south  of  it ; 
covered  it  is  with  grass  on  the  uppermost  parts 
thereof,  where  is  a  garden  where  herbs  grow, 
with  some  cherry-trees,  of  the  fruit  of  which  I 
several  times  tasted.  Below  which  garden 
there  is  a  chapel  for  divine  service  ;  but  in  re- 
gard no  minister  was  allowed  for  it,  the  ammu- 
nition of  the  garrison  was  kept  therein.  Land- 
ing here  is  very  difficult  and  dangerous  ;  for  if 
any  storm  blow  ye  cannot  enter,  because  of  the 
violence  of  the  swelling  waves,  which  beat  with 
a  wonderful  noise  upon  the  rock,  and  sometimes 
in  such  a  violent  manner,  that. the  broken  waves, 
*  See  the  Martyrs  of  the  Bass;  p.  268. 


— , 
192  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

reverberating  on  the  rock  with  a  mighty  force, 
have  come  up  the  walls  of  the  garrison,  on  the 
court  before  the  prisoners'  chambers,  which  is 
above  twenty  cubits  height :  and  with  a  full  sea 
must  you  land  ;  or  if  it  be  ebb,  you  must  be 
either  cranned  up,  or  climb  with  hands  and  feet 
up  some  steps  artificially  made  on  the  rock,  and 
must  have  help  besides  of  those  who  are  on  the 
top  of  the  rock,  who  pull  you  up  by  the  hand. 
Nor  is  there  any  place  of  landing  but  one  about 
the  whole  rock,  which  is  of  circumference  some 
three  quarters  of  a  mile.  Here  may  you  land 
in  a  fair  day  and  full  sea  without  great  hazard, 
the  rest  of  it  on  every  side  being  so  high  and 
steep.  Only  on  the  south  side  thereof  the  rock 
falls  a  little  level,  where  you  ascend  several 
steps  till  you  come  to  the  governor's  house, 
and  from  that  some  steps  higher  you  ascend  to 
a  level  court,  where  a  house  for  prisoners  and 
soldiers  is  ;  whence  likewise,  by  windings  cut 
out  of  the  rock,  there  is  a  path  leading  you  to 
the  top  of  the  rock,  whose  height  doth  bear  off 
all  north,  east  and  west  storms,  lying  open  only 
to  the  south  :  and  on  the  uppermost  parts  of 
the  rock  there  is  grass  sufficient  to  feed  twenty 


HISTORY    OP    THE    BASS.  193 

or  twenty-four  sheep,  which  are  there  very  fat 
and  good.     In  these  uppermost  parts  of  the  rock 
were   sundry   walks   of   some   threescore   foot 
length,  and  some  very  solitary,  where  we  some- 
times  entertained   ourselves.     The   accessible 
places  were  defended  with  several  wralls,  and 
cannon  placed  on  them,  which  compassed  only 
the  south  parts.     The  rest  of  the  rock  is  de- 
fended by  nature,  by  the  huge  height  and  steep- 
ness of  the  rock,  being  some  forty  cubits  high 
in  the  lowest  place.     It  wras  a  part  of  a  coun- 
try gentleman's  inheritance,  which  falling  from 
hand  to  hand,  and  changing  many  masters,  it 
was  at  last  bought  by  the  king,  who  repaired 
the  old  houses  and  walls,  and  built  some  new 
houses  for  prisoners  ;  and  a  garrison  of  twenty 
or  twenty-four  soldiers  therein  are  sufficient, 
if  courageous,  to  defend  it  from  millions  of  men, 
and  only  expugnable  by  hunger."* 

Such  was  the  "  melancholy  place"  selected  by 
government    as   a  state-prison,  and  in  which 

*  Memoirs  of  the  Rev.  James  Fraser  (Wodrow  Society 
edition),  pp.  344,  345,  The  reader  may  compare  the  above 
description  with  the  old  sketch  of  "  The  Bass  in  its  Forti* 
fied  State,  1690,"  inserted  at  the  beginning  of  the  present 
dissertation,  which  is  taken  from  Slezer's  Illustrations. 

9 


1.94  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

those  faithful  martyrs,   whose  biographies  are 
given  in  this  volume,  were  incarcerated,  during 
periods  varying  from  a  few  months  to  upwards 
of  six  years  !     The  rigor  of  their  confinement 
was  enhanced  by  the  most  vexatious  and  arbi- 
trary treatment  on  the  part  of  their  keepers.* 
The  liberty  of  taking  air  and  exercise  on  the 
hill  was  often  wantonly  denied  them,  or  obtain- 
ed as   a   great  favor  by  the  intercession  of  a 
friend.     "  My  lord  M'Leod,  coming   from  his 
travels,  went  to  see  the  Bass,  and  procured  some 
more  liberty  to  Mr.  M'Gilligen,  so  that  at  some 
times  he  was  permitted  to  come  out  upon  the 
rock"^     "  The  Bass,"  says  one  of  Blackadder's 
sons,  "  was  a  base,  cold,  unwholesome  prison  ; 
all  their  rooms  ordinarily  full  of  smoke,  like  to 
suffocate  and  choke  them,  so  as  my  father  and 
the   other  prisoners  were   necessitate  many  a 
time  to  thrust  head  and  shoulders  out  of  the 
windows  to  recover  breath.     They  were  obliged 
to  drink   the  twopenny   ale  of  the  governor's 
brewing,  scarcely  worth  a  halfpenny  the  pint, 

*  See  some  account  of  this  in  "  The  Martyrs  of  the  Bass," 
an  interesting  work  by  the  Rev.  James  Anderson, 
t  Wodrow's  History,  vol.  ii.  p.  335. 


HISTORY    OP    THE    BASS.  195 

and  several  times  were  sore  put  to  it  for  want 
of  victual  for  ten  or  twelve  days  together  ;  the 
boats  not  daring  to  venture  to  them  by  reason 
of  stormy  weather."*  No  wonder  that  in  such 
a  place,  and  under  such  treatment,  many  of 
them  contracted  diseases  which  embittered  and 
shortened  their  lives. 

But,  as  the  old  poet  sings  :— 

"  Stone  walls  do  not  a  prison  make, 

Nor  iron  bars  a  cage ; 
A  spotless  mind  and  innocent 
Calls  that  an  hermitage."* 

From  within  these  now  deserted  walls,  the 
voice  of  praise  and  prayer  might  be  often  heard, 
mingling  with  the  ribald  laughter,  oaths,  and 
songs  of  the  reckless  sentinels  ;  and  the  souls 
of  the  captives  were  borne,  on  the  wings  of  holy 
meditation,  far  aloft  and  away  from  the  dreary 
rock  within  which  their  bodies  were  pent. 
"  Every  day,"  says  Eraser,  "  I  read  the  scrip- 
tures, exhorted  and  taught  therefrom,  did  sing 
psalms,  and  prayed  with  such  of  our  society  as 
our  masters  did  permit  to  worship  God  together, 

*  Crichton's  Memoirs  of  John  Blackadder,  p.  296. 
f  Richard  Lovelace,  1639. 


196  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

and  this  two  times  a-day.  I  studied  Hebrew 
and  Greek,  and  gained  some  knowledge  in  these 
oriental  languages.  I  likewise  read  some  divi- 
nity, and  wrote  a  Treatise  of  Faith,  with  some 
other  miscellanies,  and  some  letters  to  Christian 
friends  and  relations.  Thus  I  spent  my  time, 
and  not  without  some  fruit."  Yes,  indeed.  "  not 
without  some  fruit !"  And  who  can  peruse  that 
"  Treatise  of  Faith,"  breathing,  with  some  un- 
soundness  in  its  theology,  so  much  sound  sense 
and  orthodox  piety — and  then  look  at  its  date, 
"  Bass,  July  9,  1679" — without  being  impress- 
ed with  the  utter  impotence  of  persecution  to 
crush  the  spirit  or  intermeddle  with  the  joy  of 
the  Christian  martyr  ?  "  Since  I  was  a  prison- 
er," says  another  of  them,  "  I  dwelt  at  ease, 
and  lived  securely.  The  upper  springs  flowed 
liberally  and  sweetly,  when  the  nether  springs 
were  embittered,  and  I  have  had  the  experience 
of  that  saying,  Tanta  est  dulcedo  ccelestis 
gaudii)  ut  si  una  guttula  deflueret  infer- 
num.  tot  am  amaritudinem  inferni  absor- 
beret."* 

*  "  Such  is  the  sweetness  of  heaven's  joy,  that  were  the 
least  drop  of  it  to  fall  into  hell,  it  would  absorb  all  the  bit- 


HISTORY    OP    THE    BASS.  197 

Here  the  question  must  start  to  the  lips  of 
every  reader,  For  what  cause  were  such  men 
thrown  into  prison  and  thus  treated  ?  For  no 
other  cause,  we  reply,  but  their  fidelity  to  their 
engagements,  and  their  attachment  to  Scotland's 
covenanted  reformation.  With  four  exceptions, 
all  the  prisoners  confined  in  the  Bass  were 
pious  and  peaceable  Presbyterians,  against 
whom  no  crime  could  be  charged,  save  in  the 
matters  of  their  God.  These  exceptions  con- 
sisted of  a  quaker,  charged  with  disorderly  con- 
duct— a  popish  priest  imprisoned  for  some  cause 
we  have  not  discovered — a  curate,  whose  zeal 
against  the  test  seems  to  have  carried  him  be- 
yond the  bounds  of  the  usual  moderation  of  his 
class — and  a  culprit,  whose  name  is  included  in 
a  list  of  the  martyrs,  merely  because  the  crime 
he  committed,  and  the  sufferings  he  underwent, 
illustrated  the  spirit  of  the  times — we  mean, 
James  Mitchell,  who  attempted  to  assassinate 
Sharp.  "  Misery,"  It  is  said,  "  acquaints  a  man 
with  strange  bed-fellows.7'  But  with  these 
exceptions,  the  rest  were  either  laymen  of  the 

terness  of  hell."    Mr.  M'Gilligen,  Wodrow's  History,  voL 
ii.  p.  335. 


198  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

most  respectable  station  in  society ;  or  clergy- 
men, who  would  hardly  have  owned  as  true 
ministers  of  Christ  their  mitred  persecutors,  or 
the  curates  they  had  intruded  into  their  pul- 
pits \  and  who  had  much  sounder  reasons  for 
questioning  the  commission  under  which  they 
acted,  than  for  laying  down  their  own  at  the 
bidding  of  such  worthless  satraps  of  the  State. 
The  immediate  and  ostensible  ground  of  their 
suffering,  was  the  right  which  they  claimed  to 
preach  the  everlasting  gospel,  without  submit- 
ting to  conditions  inconsistent  with  their  alle- 
giance to  the  King  of  Zion.  Nor  could  their 
enemies  charge  them,  even  on  the  arbitrary  in- 
terpretation of  law  which  they  applied  to  the 
case  of  others,  with  holding  disloyal  principles. 
Only  two  of  them — Gordon  and  Shields — be- 
longed to  what  has  been  called  the  Cameronian 
party.  With  these  two  exceptions,  they  all 
owned  the  lawfulness  of  the  civil  government, 
and  submitted  (too  slavishly  perhaps)  to  the 
authority  of  the  king  in  all  civil  matters. 
They  denied  his  jurisdiction  only  in  matters 
pertaining  to  conscience  and  to  the  church. 
They  gave  unto  Csesar  the  things  that  were 


HISTORY    OF    THE    BASS,  199 


Caesar's,  and  to  God  the  things  that  were 
God's.*  While  they  condemned  and  deplored 
the  public  violation  of  the  covenant  by  all 
classes,  they  disapproved  of  all  violent,  tumul- 
tuous, or  unconstitutional  methods  for  reviving 
or  re-enforcing  that  deed.  In  short,  they  were 
the  most  moderate,  though,  at  the  same  time, 
firm  and  uncompromising,  of  the  Presbyterian 
clergy  at  that  period. 

Devoted  to  such  a  purpose,  it  might  be  sup- 
posed that  the  Bass  Rock,  garrisoned  as  it  was 
by  a  rude  and  licentious  soldiery,  bristling  with 
cannon,  and  frowning  defiance  on  the  surround- 
ing coast,  might  have  kept  its  immediate  neigh- 
borhood at  least  in  a  state  of  deferential  sub- 
mission. Let  the  following  scene  show  the 
error  of  such  a  supposition,  and  the  utter 
inefficiency  of  the  measures  then  pursued  for 
repressing  the  spirit  of  our  pious  forefathers. 
On  the  5th  of  May,  1678,  being  Sabbath,  a  large 
assembly  of  people,  amounting  to  a  thousand  or 

*  In  fact,  the  generality  of  the  Presbyterians  at  that  pe- 
riod, understood  their  privileges  as  Christians  better  than 
their  rights  as  subjects ;  and  were  disposed,  in  civil  things, 
to  give  to  Caesar  something  more  than  his  due. 


— 


200  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

thereby,  met  on  the  hills  of  Whitekirk,  imme- 
diately opposite  the  Bass,  within  sight  of  the 
garrison,  and  almost  within  range  of  its  guns. 
It  was  soon  discovered  to  be  a  conventicle  ! 
Indignant  at  what  he  considered  an  insult  at 
once  to  Government  and  to  himself,  the  deputy- 
governor,  Charles  Maitland,  sallied  out  with 
forty  soldiers,  and  some  country  people  whom 
they  forced  along  with  them,  and  boldly  ap- 
proached the  obnoxious  assemblage.  Before 
they  came  up,  a  young  man  on  horseback,  nam- 
ed James  Learmonth,  was  observed  riding 
among  the  people  and  saying,  "  Let  there  be  no 
cowards  here  this  day,  sirs,  and  let  those  who 
have  arms  go  out  foremost."  On  the  approach 
of  the  soldiers  the  people  sat  close  together, 
and  when  required  to  dismiss  in  the  king's 
name,  one  of  them  replied,  "  that  they  honored 
the  king,  but  were  resolved  to  hear  the  word  of 
God  when  preached  to  them."  Upon  this,  one 
of  the  soldiers  struck  at  the  man,  but  he  was 
immediately  felled  to  the  ground  by  the  staff  of 
a  strong-bodied  countryman.  A  scuffle  ensued, 
in  the  course  of  which  one  of  the  soldiers  was 
unfortunately  shot,  and  the  rest  having  beec 


HISTORY    OP    THE    BASS.  201 

• ' 

surrounded  and  disarmed,  betook  themselves  to 
flight.  For  having  been  present  at  this  con- 
venticle, James  Learmonth,  though  he  was 
proved  to  have  been  unarmed,  was  condemned, 
after  the  jury  had  been  thrust  back  into  the 
box  for  the  third  time  to  amend  their  verdict, 
and  threatened  with  an  assize  of  error ;  and  he 
was  beheaded  in  the  Grassmarket,  on  the  27th 
of  September  following.  Before  his  execution, 
he  calmly  protested  his  innocence — disavowed 
the  charge  of  sedition  and  disloyalty — exhorted 
the  people  to  submission  to  the  king  and  magis- 
trates in  all  their  just  and  lawful  commands ; 
and  declared  his  adherence  to  the  work  of  the 
Reformation,  and  his  testimony  against  "  the 
unjust  usurpation  of  the  crown  of  Jesus  Christ, 
and  putting  it  upon  the  head  of  a  mortal  man 
whose  breath  is  in  his  nostrils.'7  He  also  de- 
clared his  firm  hope  that  "  though  it  please  the 
Lord  to  let  them  triumph  and  insult  for  a  time, 
yet  he  will  defend  and  revive  his  own  work, 
and  the  spirits  of  his  own  oppressed  remnant 
also  in  these  barren  places ;  and  that  the  seed 
of  the  gospel  that  hath  been  sown  in  East  Lo- 
thian shall  have  a  spring  season  and  a  harvest, 
9* 


202  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

Jl . 

in  spite  of  devils  and  men,  to  the  glory  of  God, 
and  the  comfort  of  his  own  people."* 

The  scene  shifts  to  the  tenth  of  December, 
1688.  Beacons  may  be  observed  on  the  Bass, 
North  Berwick  Law,  and  other  adjacent  heights, 
erected  by  the  Scottish  Council  on  their  first 
alarm  of  the  invasion  of  the  Prince  of  Orange, 
at  the  firing  of  which  all  fencible  persons  were 
to  turn  out  and  meet  at  Haddington  for  the  de- 
fence of  the  kingdom.  But  the  Prince  has 
landed  in  England,  the  government  of  James 
has  fallen  without  a  struggle,  and  the  beacons 
remain  unkindled.  The  inhabitants  of  Edin- 
burgh have  risen  this  day  in  a  tumult,  and  have 
offered  four  hundred  pounds  for  the  Chancellor, 
the  Earl  of  Perth,  dead  or  alive.  Meanwhile,  a 
small  suspicious-looking  sloop  may  be  observed 
making  its  way  down  the  Firth.  That  vessel 
contains  the  obnoxious  Earl,  who,  taking  the 
alarm,  has  embarked  at  Burntisland  for  France, 
"with  all  imaginable  secrecy,  himself  in  woman's 
habit,  and  his  wife  in  man's  apparel" — a  sad 
plight  for  the  Popish  Chancellor,  who  had  ridden 

*  Fountainhall's  Decisions,  vol.  i.  p.  13 ;  Wodrow's  His- 
tory, vol.  ii.  p.  476 ;  Naphtali,  pp.  414-424. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    BASS.  203 

rough-shod  for  so  many  years  over  the  liberties 
and  religion  of  his  country.  Following  hard  in 
the  wake  of  the  sloop  is  a  light  war-boat,  manned 
with  thirty-six  bold  sailors,  fully  armed,  under 
the  command  of  one  Wilson,  who  had  once  been 
a  buccaneer.  These  are  the  Kirkcaldy  seamen, 
who  having  obtained  intelligence  of  the  prize 
aboard  the  vessel  as  it  passed  their  harbor,  are 
in  hot  pursuit  after  the  fugitive  Earl.  As  they 
approach  the  Bass,  the  hardy  sailors  close  upon 
their  prey,  and  just  opposite  that  castle  of  which 
Perth  was  the  governor,  and  into  which  he  had 
committed  so  many  of  our  worthies,  he  is  seized 
in  his  disguise,  ignominiously  brought  back  to 
Kirkcaldy,  and  thrown,  like  a  common  felon, 
into  the  prison.* 

Again  the  scene  changes.  The  rock,  after 
holding  out  under  Charles  Maitland,  the  deputy- 
governor,  in  the  name  of  the  exiled  king,  till 
1690,  is  surrendered  into  the  hands  of  the  new 
government;  but,  strangely  enough,  it  falls 
again  into  the  temporary  possession  of  the  ad- 

*  Crawfurd's  Lives  of  the  Chancellors,  vol.  i.  p.  234;  His- 
tory of  the  late  Revolution,  p.  26 ;  Wodrow's  History,  vol  .ii; 
p.  464;  Balcarras'  Memoirs. 


204  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

herents  of  James.  A  few  daring  young  officers 
who  had  been  taken  prisoners  at  Cromdale,  and 
had  been  sent  to  the  Bass,  formed  a  plan  for 
surprising  the  place,  which  succeeded.  Being 
supplied  with  provisions  by  their  friends  on 
shore,  and  receiving  reinforcements  from  abroad, 
they  contrived,  with  a  prowess  and  perseverance 
worthy  of  a  better  cause,  to  keep  their  ground 
for  several  years.  They  plundered  various  mer- 
chant vessels ;  made  all  of  them  pay  tribute 
that  came  within  reach  of  their  guns ;  and 
craning  up  their  boats  to  the  rock,  bade  defi- 
ance to  all  attempts  to  dislodge  them.  One  Mr. 
Trotter  having  been  condemned  to  be  hanged 
for  conveying  to  them  supplies,  they  discharged 
a  gun-shot  among  the  crowd  met  to  witness  his 
execution  at  Castleton,  opposite  the  island, 
which  dispersed  them,  though  it  did  not  pre- 
vent the  execution  at  a  different  place.  The 
siege  cost  Andrew  Fletcher  of  Saltoun,  the  new 
governor,  a  vast  amount  of  trouble  and  expense. 
At  length,  irritated  at  the  pertinacity  of  the 
rebels,  William  dispatched  two  ships  of  war 
which,  aided  by  smaller  vessels,  cut  off  their 
supplies,  and  reduced  them  to  the  necessity  of 


HISTORY    OP    THE    BASS.  205 

capitulating  in  April,  1694.  The  governor,  it 
is  said.  "  who  had  saved  some  bottles  of  the 
best  French  wine  and  brandy,  and  some  fine 
biscuit,  made  the  commissioners  sent  to  treat 
with  him  drink  plentifully,  telling  them  there 
was  no  scarcity  of  provisions,  and  unless  he  had 
his  own  terms  he  would  not  surrender  ;  and  after 
they  were  gone,  he  ordered  all  the  caputs,  coats, 
and  hats,  in  the  garrison,  to  be  put  on  the  muz- 
zles of  muskets,  to  make  them  believe  the  place 
was  full  of  men ;  upon  which  their  lordships  re- 
turned to  the  Council,  and  reported  how  they 
were  treated,  which  induced  them  to  comply 
with  the  governor's  articles."*  Thus  the  Bass 
had  the  distinction  of  being  the  last  place  that 
held  out  for  James  in  Scotland.  After  the  sur- 
render, an  order  was  given  to  the  commander-in- 
chief  to  demolish  all  the  fortifications  and  build- 
ings of  the  Bass,  and  to  remove  the  cannon  and 
ammunition ;  an  order  which,  not  having  been 
punctually  fulfilled  at  the  time,  was  finally 
carried  into  execution  by  the  command  of  King 
William  in  ITOl.t 

*  Miscellanea  Scotica,  vol.  iii.  p.  35. 

t  In  1706,  the  Bass  was  granted  by  the  Crown  to  Presi- 

8 


206  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

The  Revolution  has  come,  and  with  it  another 
generation  has  sprung  up  that  has  lost  the 
spirit,  as  they  knew  not  "  the  afflictions  of 
Joseph."  A  marked  difference  may  be  observ- 
ed even  in  the  immediate  descendants  of  the 
Covenanters.  Adam  Blackadder,  the  second 
son  of  the  martyr  of  the  Bass,  followed  the 
mercantile  profession.  He  seems  to  have  been 
a  man  of  the  world,  and  a  wag,  making  merry 
at  the  remembrance  of  the  hardships  to  which, 
in  early  youth,  he  was  subjected  on  his  father's 
account.  Provost  Russell  of  Stirling  arrested 
him  when  he  was  an  apprentice.  u  The  first 
word  he  spake  to  me,"  says  Adam,  "  was,  put- 
ting on  his  breeches,  c  Is  not  this  bra7  wark, 
sirr,  that  we  maun  be  troubled  with  the  like  of 
you  ?'  I  answered,  You  have  got  a  bra'  prize, 
my  Lord,  that  has  clacht  a  poor  prentice." 
Then,  when  in  prison,  "  the  Earl  of  Argyle's 
two  daughters-in-law,  Lady  Sophia  and  Lady 
Henrietta,  and  Lady  Jean,  his  own  daughter, 

dent  Sir  Hew  Dalrymple,  reserving  the  power  of  re-fortify- 
ing it  should  this  be  deemed  expedient ;  and  it  remains  the 
property  of  his  lineal  descendant,  Sir  Hew  Dalrymple  of 
North  Berwick,  Baronet. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    BASS.  207 

did  me  the  honor  to  come  and  see  me  ;  when  I 
remember,  Lady  Sophia  stood  up  on  a  bench 
and  arraigned  before  her  the  Provost  of  Stir- 
ling, then  sentenced  and  condemned  him  to  be 
hanged  for  keeping  me  in  prison ;  which  highly 
enraged  the  poor  fool  provost,  though  it  was 
but  a  harmless  frolic."  Even  when  reciting  a 
visit  he  paid  to  his  father  in  the  Bass,  he  does 
it  more  in  the  .spirit  of  mirth  than  of  martyr- 
dom. "  We  went  from  that  to  the  Bass,  where  my 
worthy  father  was  lying  prisoner,  and  had  been 
there  for  some  years.  When  we  were  going 
away  (my  father  convoying  us  to  the  gate),  the 
governor  bid  me  halt  a  little  ;  he  had  something 
to  say  to  me  ere  I  went.  l  What's  the  matter  ?' 
says  I.  '  You  must  hold  up  your  hand  and  swear.' 
<  Ou,'  says  I,  ' who  empowered  you  to  be  a 
judge,  and  impose  oaths  ?'  c  I  have  my  orders,' 
says  he.  My  father  (who  was  a  bold  man), 
overhearing  him,  said,  'I  protest,  governor, 
you  are  impertinent,  sir,  to  trouble  the  young 
man  with  anything  of  that  nature.'  To  which 
the  governor  answered,  '  I  profess,  Mr.  Black- 
adder,  sir,  I'll  commit  both  you  and  him  close 
prisoners,  if  I  hear  any  more  of  your  talk.' 


208  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

'  Content/  says  my  father  ;  and  then  says  to 
me, '  Come  along  with  me,  sir  !'  I  thought  with 
myself,  '  I  beg  your  pardon,  father — not  so  long 
as  I  can  do  better.'  Then  I  began  to  argue  the 
matter  with  the  governor,  by  telling  him  I  was 
an  utter  stranger  as  to  affairs  in  Scotland,  and 
knew  nothing  about  what  was  passing,  which 
calmed  him  a  little.  At  last  he  says,  '  Well, 
sir,  I  will  not  trouble  you  at  this  time ;  but,  I 
assure,  you,  I  have  such  orders,  and  that,  per- 
haps, you  will  find  ere  you  come  the  length  of 
Edinburgh ;  for  every  sergeant  and  corporal 
may  stop  and  challenge  any  man  on  the  road.' 
So  I  thanked  him  and  came  off,  and  went  for 
Edinburgh."* 

The  same  scene  was  revisited  by  his  brother 
with  more  serious  feelings.  On  the  21st  of 
April,  1713,  a  grave,  military-looking  man, 
might  have  been  observed  standing  by  the  sea- 
beach  of  Dunbar;  his  eyes  intently  fixed  in  the 
direction  of  the  Bass.  This  is  Colonel  John 
Blackadder,  the  youngest  son  of  the  same  wor- 
thy sufferer,  "  a  brave  soldier  and  a  devout 
Christian."  He  had  entered  the  army  in  1689, 

*  Crichton's  Memoirs  of  John  Blackadder,  pp.  328-338. 


HISTORY    OP    THE    BASS.  209 

as  cadet  in  the  Cameronian  Regiment ;  had  dis- 
tinguished himself  in  Queen  Anne's  wars,  under 
the  great  Duke  of  Marlborough  ;  and  now,  dis- 
gusted with  the  licentiousness  of  the  camp,  he 
has  returned  to  his  native  country,  and  has 
reached  Dunbar  on  his  way  home  to  spend  a 
peaceful  life  as  an  elder  of  the  kirk  of  Scotland. 
The  solitary  rock  where  his  venerable  father 
had  languished  and  died  in  captivity,  and  which, 
it  appears,  he  had  then  visited  occasionally  on 
errands  of  filial  duty  and  affection,  stands  with 
in  a  few  miles  of  that  town.  This  naturally  at- 
tracted his  attention  ;  yet,  even  in  the  pious  re- 
flections to  which  the  sight  of  it  gave  birth,  we 
may  observe  that  his  mind,  with  a  devout  ego- 
tism common  to  many  other  good  men  of  the  pe- 
riod, was  turned  less  to  the  public  cause  in 
which  his  father  suffered,  than  to  the  workings 
of  his  own  personal  experience.  "  In  the  eve- 
ning," says  he,  "  I  stepped  out,  and  walked  to- 
wards the  sea-side,  in  sight  of  the  Bass  Island, 
which  occasioned  serious  thoughts,  and  a  thank- 
ful frame  of  mind,  to  think  of  the  long  train  of 
mercy  and  goodness  that  has  followed  me  these 
many  years  since  I  was  there,  when  there  was 


210  CIVIL    AND    ECCLESIASTIC 

far  from  any  appearance  or  expectation  of  such 
things  as  Providence  has  now  done  for  me."* 
The  good  Colonel  was  a  type  of  the  incipient 
moderatism  of  the  last  century — a  well-living, 
well-meaning  gentleman — himself  sound  as  a 
bell  in  the  faith,  but  impatient  of  all  "heats 
and  discords,'7  "  shunning  extremes  on  either 
hand,"  and  who  had  seen  so  little  religion  of 
any  sort  in  the  army,  that  he  could  ill  brook  to 
see  good  men  striving  about  it  in  the  Church. 
So  he  would  sometimes  stand  up  erect  in  the 
church  courts,  and  deliver  pithy  orations,  plen- 
tifully interlarded  with  regimental  maxims, 
sadly  to  the  annoyance  of"  the  hot  stiff  men  on 
both  sides,"  telling  the  Venerable  Assembly 
that  "  they  should  not  spend  their  fire  upon  one 
another" — that  "  they  should  not  be  like  a  gene- 
ral or  an  army  that  sends  out  all  its  sentries 
one  way,  and  while  they  are  looking  out  sharply 
that  way,  the  enemy  comes  and  attacks  them  in 
a  different  quarter,  where  they  are  not  expect- 
ing, and  therefore  unprepared."  In  short,  he 
begins  to  talk  very  much  like  a  latitudinarian, 

*  Crichton's  Life  of  Lieutenant-Colonel  Blackadder,  p. 
436. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    BASS.  211 

and  "  thinks  religion  runs  greatly  in  the  wrong 
channel,  and  may  be   called   Presbyterianism 
rather  than  Christianity — strict  opinions  in  the 
head  about  public  things,  and  oftentimes  about 
doubtful  points,  where  good  men  are  on  both 
sides  ;    while  the   influences  of  it  do  not  go 
through  the  conduct  of  their  lives,  in  universal 
obedience  and  charity."     Had  all  in  the  Assem- 
bly been  as  good  Christians  as  Colonel  Black- 
adder,  his  reflections  would  have  been  more  ap- 
propriate ;    but  it  was  not  in  such  a  do-nothing 
school  that  he  had  first  learned  to  pray,  as  it 
was  not  by  following  such  pacific  tactics  that  he 
had  learned   to  fight.      The  policy  which   he 
recommended,  and  which  subsequently  became 
predominant,  issued  in  the  burial  of  vital  truth 
and  piety.    By  skinning  over  the  wounds  of  the 
Church,  it  left  them  to  fester  within.      Partial 
revivals  were  followed  by  long  periods  of  spirit- 
ual decay  ;  and  the  Christianity  of  the  Scottish 
Church  has  only  revived  with  the  revival  of  her 
Presbyterianism . 


B  Btortyis  nf  tjjB  38m 


THE  MARTYRS  OF  THE  BASS. 


THE  bare  and  sea-girt  Bass,  beaten  upon  in- 
cessantly by  the  ocean,  "  with  all  its  roaring 
multitude  of  waves,"  lies  at  the  distance  of 
about  a  mile  and  a  half  from  the  shore  of  East 
Lothian,  where  it  rounds  from  the  North  Sea 
into  the  Frith  of  Forth.  It  seems,  with  the 
few  sheep  that  nibble  its  short  sward,  and  the 
myriads  of  clamorous  sea-fowl  that  have  made 
it  their  fishing-station,  to  present  the  strongest { 
possible  contrast  to  the  proper  habitations  of 
men,  such  as  are  to  be  seen  on  the  opposite 
shore,  embosomed  among  trees,  enjoying  the 
kindly  shelter  of  slope  or  hill,  surrounded  with 
a  teeming  soil  and  its  productions,  and  within 
easy  reach  of  one  another,  so  as  to  add  the  sol- 


216  THE    MARTYRS 

ace  of  good  neighborhood  to  the  sweets  of  do- 
mestic life. 

But  sheep  and  sea-fowl,  though  they  are 
now,  have  not  been  always  the  sole  occupants 
of  that  exposed  and  naked  rock.  That  islet, 
these  crumbling  ruins,  speak  of  seventeen  years 
of  solitude  and  of  suffering,  endured  by  above 
fifty  of  Scotland's  noblest  and  worthiest  sons, 
who,  some  for  a  longer,  some  for  a  shorter  part 
of  that  period,  suffered  a  painful  martyrdom, 
rather  than  countenance  a  state  of  things  in 
which  tyrannical  rulers  trampled  on  the  crown  of 
Christ,  on  the  independence  of  his  church,  and 
on  the  dearest  privileges  of  his  people.  Their 
crime  was  the  disowning  of  the  government  in 
things  spiritual,  which  God  himself  was  soon  to 
disown,  alike  in  things  spiritual  and  things 
civil,  by  bringing  about,  in  his  mysterious  Prov- 
idence, the  marvellous  revolution  of  1688 — an 
event  which  deprived  King  James  VII.  of  his 
three  kingdoms,  and  restored  our  insulted  and 
oppressed  Church  to  her  rank,  her  freedom, 
and,  what  she  most  desired,  her  scope  for  doing 
good. 

As  there  are  still  extant  memorials,  though 


OF    THE    BASS.  217 

not  so  ample  as  could  be  wished,  of  the  lives 
and  sufferings  of  the  Martyrs  of  the  Bass,  the 
following  passages  are  given  to  show  how  truly 
that  little  island  may  be  regarded  as  a  Patmos, 
to  which  holy  men  of  God,  like  the  beloved  dis- 
ciple, were  banished  for  a  season3  for  good  and 
wise  purposes,  though  these  may  not  be  all  dis- 
coverable by  us. 

I.  Let  us  take  up  the  Memoirs  of  that  emi- 
nent Christian,  the  Rev.  James  Eraser  of  Brea, 
written  by  himself.  Under  chap,  xii.,  sec.  3, 
Of  my  first  imprisonment  on  the  Bass,  he 
writes  to  this  effect : — • 

"  Some  two  years  and  a  half  did  I  continue 
intercommuned,  discharging  the  commission  I 
had  received  from  the  Lord  Jesus  in  great 
weakness,  and  in  manifold  temptations,  through 
the  lying  in  wait  of  those  who  hunted  after  me  ; 
for  the  bishops,  knowing  me  to  be  a  rigid  non- 
conformist, and  imagining  me  to  be  of  some 
parts,  and  very  active  in  preaching  in  the  fields 
and  keeping  up  the  secession,  as  they  called  it, 
stirred  up  the  king's  council  against  me.  as  a 
person  of  very  disloyal  principles  and  practices. 
Accordingly,  I  was  one  of  ^the  three  for 
10* 


218  THE    MARTYRS 


apprehension  a  considerable  sum  was  proffered, 
although  nothing  could  be  laid  to  my  charge  of 
sedition  or  insurrection,  but  only  that  I  preach- 
ed without  the  bishop's  authority,  and  kept 
such  of  the  nation  as  I  had  influence  upon,  or 
conversed  with,  from  concurring  with  the  pub- 
lic courses  established  by  law.  Many  attempts 
were  made  against  me,  which  for  some  years  I 
escaped.  At  last  the  town-major  of  Edinburgh, 
at  the  solicitation  of  the  archbishop,  and  en- 
couraged by  the  promise  of  great  rewards,  did, 
on  the  Lord's  day  night,  28th  January,  by  the 
treachery  of  a  servant-maid  to  a  relation  in 
whose  house  I  ordinarily  preached,  apprehend 
me  about  ten  o'clock  at  night,  as  I  was,  after 
supper,  recommending  the  house  and  family  to 
Grod  by  prayer.  I  was  then  interrupted  and 
taken  to  prison.  I  did  not  think  fit  to  resist, 
lest  some  friends  and  relations  then  with  me 
might  be  made  to  suffer. 

"  The  town-major  went  immediately  to  the 
archbishop  with  the  news  of  my  apprehension, 
whereat  the  latter  was  greatly  rejoiced,  and 
longed  impatiently  for  the  next  day,  which  no 
sooner  dawned  than  he,  being  a  councillor,  sent 


OF    THE    BASS.  219 

order  to  the  jailor  that  I  should  be  kept  close 
and  none  allowed  access  to  me.  This  was  done 
until  five  at  night,  when  I  appeared  before  a 
meeting  of  some  of  the  councillors  in  committee, 
and  was  examined  and  verbally  charged  with 
being  a  seditious  person,  who  rent  the  Church 
of  Christ,  and  was  very  active  to  make  and  keep 
up  the  schism  ;  as  a  preacher  in  field  conventi- 
cles, which  was  death  by  law,  as  they  would 
gladly  have  had  me  acknowledge,  and  likewise 
by  whom  I  was  empowered  to  preach ;  that  I 
was  intercommuned  and  despised  the  law,  so  far 
as  never  to  have  made  any  application  to  be 
freed  from  that  sentence  ;  and  that  I  was  a  per- 
son of  very  bad  principles,  destructive  to  all 
government ;  and  thereupon  the  archbishop, 
who  thought  to  ensnare  me  by  my  own  words, 
inquired,  whether  I  thought  it  lawful,  upon  pre- 
tence of  religion,  to  take  up  arms  against  the 
king's  majesty  ?  This  was  the  sum,  with  the 
addition  that  I  kept  correspondence  with  some 
prisoners  in  the  Bass,  which  the  archbishop 
confidently  averred  he  knew. 

"  These  things  were  not  charged  against  me 
all  at  once,  but  in  a  confused  way  ;  and  many 


220  THE    MARTYRS 

things  by  way  of  question.  I  cannot  say  of  any 
of  the  committee  of  the  council,  but  that  they 
were  all  civil  and  sober  persons,  of  whom,  but 
for  the  instigation  and  fear  of  the  archbishop, 
I  might  have  been  moderately  dealt  with  ;  but 
he,  in  a  bitter  invective  oration  represented  me 
as  a  very  odious  and  criminal  person,  and  ag- 
gravated my  alleged  crimes  vehemently. 

"  To  all  this  I  replied,  that  I  acknowledged 
that  I  was  (though  most  unworthy)  a  minister 
of  the  gospel,  and  that  I  preached  frequently, 
as  the  Lord  called  me,  and  independently  of 
the  bishop  ;  that  the  subjects  of  my  discourses 
and  sermons  were  not  disloyal  and  traitorous 
principles  and  assertions,  as  the  archbishop 
alleged,  but  according  as  I  was  helped,  I  preach- 
ed repentance  towards  God,  and  faith  towards 
Jesus  Christ,  and  nothing  but  what  was  con- 
tained in  the  prophets,  and  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment ;  that  I  was  so  far  from  being  terrified  or 
ashamed  to  own  that  I  was  a  minister  of  Christ, 
that,  though  I  was  of  no  despicable  extraction, 
yet  I  counted  it  my  greatest  honor  to  serve 
God  in  the  gospel  of  his  Son  ;  that  I  never 
preached  nor  stirred  people  to  sedition,  and 


_J 


OF    THE    BASS.  221 


cared  not  though  the  principles  of  my  heart 
were  as  perceptible  to  their  lordships  as  the 
external  lineaments  of  my  face  ;  that  as  for 
rising  against  the  king  upon  pretext  or  pretence 
of  religion,  which  the  archbishop  alleged  I  main- 
tained, I  told  him  he  was  therein  abused  by  his 
inferiors  ;  for  I  never  knew  of  any,  even  the 
most  zealous  asserters  of  the  liberties  of  the 
people,  that  maintain  rising  in  arms  upon  pre- 
tence of  religion  ;  that  matters  of  prerogative 
and  privileges  were  things  of  a  thorny  and 
ticklish  nature,  of  which,  for  the  present,  I  de- 
sired not  to  give  my  thoughts,  not  judging  the 
same  to  be  within  my  sphere  now."  *  *  * 

Enough  has  been  given  of  his  answers  during 
this  examination  to  show  the  godly  and  inno- 
cent spirit  of  the  man,  and  how  remote  he  was 
from  urging  men  to  violent  measures,  even 
against  a  government  whose  principles  and  prac- 
tices alike  revolted  him,  but  which  he  left  to  the 
judgment  of  God.  Such,  indeed,  seems  to  have 
been  the  view  of  Christian  duty  at  that  time 
taken  by  nearly  all  who  were  imprisoned  on  the 
Bass.  We  proceed,  therefore,  to  relate,  in  his 
own  words,  how  Mr.  Fraser  was  sent  there, 


222  THE    MARTYRS 

what  kind  of  life  he  led  while  thus  banished 
from  the  mainland  of  Scotland,  what  were  his 
occupations,  and  what  sort  of  society  he  had. 

"  After  this,"  he  continues,  "  I  was  remanded 
to  prison,  but  ordered  to  be  kept  more  straitly ; 
my  pockets  were  searched  for  letters  ;  knives, 
ink.  paper,  and  pen  were  taken  from  me,  and  all 
company  discharged,  which  filled  me  with  some 
melancholy  apprehensions.  But  in  my  dark- 
ness was  the  Lord  a  light  round  about  me  ;  him 
they  could  not  shut  out  from  me.  I  had  one 
of  the  sweetest  nights  I  had  had  for  ten  years, 
and  was  lifted  up,  by  a  sense  of  the  Lord's  fa- 
vor, above  death,  sin,  hell,  wrath,  prelates  and 
papists.  *  About  one  or  two  o'clock  in 

the  morning  I  fell  into  a  sound  sleep,  until  a 
little  before  six  o'clock  I  was  awakened  by  one 
of  the  jailors,  who  called  to  me  to  make  ready 
against  six  o'clock  to  go  to  the  Bass ;  for  so  the 
council  had  determined.  This  I  very  cheer- 
fully obeyed,  and  so,  with  another  person,  who 
was  prisoner  with  me,  was  I,  by  a  guard  of 
twelve  horse  and  thirty  foot,  conveyed  to  the 
Bass,  where  we  safely  landed  on  Wednesday 
morning,  having  been  one  night  on  the  way,  and 


OF    THE    BASS.  22S 

were  delivered  to  the  custody  of  the  governor, 
who  commanded  a  garrison  of  some  eighteen  or 
twenty  soldiers." 

Melancholy  as  the  spot  must  undoubtedly 
have  been,  especially  during  the  storms  and 
long  nights  of  winter,  and  with  the  aggravations 
afterwards  mentioned,  the  first  things  that  this 
man  of  God  proceeds  to  record  of  his  residence, 
are  the  mercies  he  experienced  there.  And 
truly  if  the  greatness  of  a  man's  soul,  and  his 
strength  of  mind,  are  to  be  measured  by  the 
manner  in  which  he  bears  up  under  adversity, 
the  Bass,  with  its  Frasers,  and  Blackaddcrs, 
and  Hogs,  carries  it  over  St.  Helena,  where  the 
mightiest  conqueror  of  modern  times  was  tried 
by  that  touchstone,  and  "  found  wanting." 

"  And  here,"  continues  Mr.  Fraser,  "  I  had 
likewise  experience  of  the  goodness  of  God  to- 
wards me,  in  providing  for  me,  without  being 
chargeable  to  any,  for  such  things  as  I  stood  in 
need  of;  in  preserving  and  supporting  me 
under  great  pressures  of  spirit  from  sin,  suffer- 
ings, temptations,  sorrows,  and  untenderness 
of  brethren  and  friends,  so  that  I  was  not  there- 
with overwhelmed ;  in  preserving  me  in  health 


224  THE    MARTYRS 


all  that  time.  That  in  this  time,  partly  by  sell- 
ing house-plenishing,  and  improving  of  my 
state,  I  paid  and  cleared  one  hundred  pounds 
of  debts.  I  had  the  comfort  and  edification  of 
fellow-prisoners,  both  ministers  and  others, 
some  there  before  me,  and  others  brought  in 
since  my  coming,  whose  company  was  sweet  and 
edifying  many  times  to  me.  We  had  liberty, 
for  the  most  part,  of  taking  the  air  up  the  hill ; 
my  solitary  walks  were  sometimes  very  plea- 
sant to  me.  I  had  the  comfort  of  friends  that 
came  in  kindness  to  see  us  from  the  city  and 
country.  I  had  some  special  visits  from  God, 
ordinarily  in  private  duties,  and  sometimes  in 
worshipping  and  conferring  with  others.  Some 
increase  (I  think)  I  found  in  gifts,  knowledge 
and  grace  ;  some  further  discoveries  of  the 
knowledge  of  Christ  and  the  gospel,  such  as  I 
never  had  before.  I  was  made  some  way  use- 
ful, by  writing  of  letters  abroad,  praying  with, 
preaching  to,  and  conference  with  others.  And 
that  I  had  a  clearly  unexpected  deliverance  from 
this  sad  place.  Some  improvement  I  made  of 
this  price  that  was  put  in  my  hand ;  this,  I 


OP    THE    BASS.  225 

think,  I  was  bound  to  take  notice  of,  and  be 
thankful  for  to  the  Lord." 

How  natural  for  persons  condemned  to  im- 
prisonment, hardship,  and  exile,  as  they  may 
think,  unjustly,  to  brood  over  their  misfortunes, 
aggravate  them  to  their  own  minds  by  perpetu- 
ally dwelling  upon  them,  and  in  describing  them 
to  others,  tax  their  ingenuity  to  make  them  ap- 
pear as  grievous  as  possible.  Here  we  see  all 
this  reversed  by  the  wonderful  power  of  Divine 
grace.  Here  we  find  ingenuity  taxed  to  the  ut- 
most, in  swelling  the  list  of  the  prisoner's  mer- 
cies, although  he  tells  us  afterwards  quite 
enough  of  the  sufferings  he  and  others  endured 
there,  to  make  it  no  marvel  that  he  should,  even 
in  speaking  of  the  mercies,  call  the  Bass  first  a 
melancholy,  then  a  sad  place. 

But  the  Bass  Rock  is  not  only  a  monument 
of  cheerful  suffering,  of  rejoicing  in  the  Lord 
always,  it  is  that  also  of  sanctified  industry. 
Let  us  hear  from  the  pen  of  the  same  godly  man, 
how  he,  and  no  doubt,  his  fellow-prisoners,  em- 
ployed their  time  while  there  : — 

"  As  for  my  exercises  here,"  says  he,  "  and 
improvement  of  time,  I  judged  when  I  first  came, 
10* 


226  THE    MARTYRS 

that  I  was  called  to  some  work  and  improve- 
ment of  this  price  put  into  my  hand,  and  there- 
fore did  I  exercise  myself  in  lamenting  my  sins 
and  misspent  life,  and  great  shortcoming.  I 
labored  after  and  desired  some  further  know- 
ledge of  God,  and  Christ,  and  grace,  and  to  glo- 
rify God  in  my  sufferings.  Some  hours,  morn- 
ing and  evening,  and  mid-day,  I  spent  in  medi- 
tation, in  praising,  and  in  reading  the  Scrip- 
ture, for  keeping  up  and  increasing  communion 
with  God,  and  increase  of  grace,  and  this  con- 
stantly ;  besides  several  fast  days,  which  were 
my  sweetest  seasons  and  best  times.  Every 
day  I  read  the  Scriptures,  exhorted  and  taught 
therefrom,  did  sing  psalms,  and  prayed  with 
such  of  our  society  as  our  masters  allowed  to 
worship  God  together,  and  this  twice  a-day.  I 
studied  Hebrew  and  Greek,  and  gained  some 
knowledge  in  these  oriental  languages.  I  like- 
wise read  some  divinity,  and  wrote  a  Treatise 
on  Faith,*  with  some  other  miscellaneous,  and 
several  letters  to  Christian  friends  and  rela- 

*  An  edition  was  "  Printed  and  sold  by  William  Gray,  at 
Magdalen's  Chapel,  within  the  Cowgatehead,"  Edinburgh, 
1749.  The  last  page  bears,  "  Bass,  July  9,  1679." 


OP    THE    BASS.  227 


tions.     Thus  I  spent  my  time,  and  not  without 
some  fruit.'7 

Other  causes  and  other  times  have  had  their 
martyrs,  as  well  as  the  principles  of  our  cove- 
nanting forefathers,  and  the  reigns  of  Charles 
II.  and  James  VII.  Let  us,  for  the  sake  of 
contrast,  look  to  a  case  of  severe  martyrdom 
that  occurred  about  fifty  years  ago  in  France. 
In  1797,  an  anarchical  and  selfish  minority  of 
the  Legislative  body  and  the  Council  of  the 
Ancients  in  that  country,  combined,  with  tw^o 
out  of  the  three  members  of  the  National  Di- 
rectory, to  coerce  and  overpower  their  oppo- 
nents, by  making  the  army  and  the  mob  at  once 
dupes  of  their  cunning,  and  the  executors  of 
their  will.  As  the  nation  at  large,  however, 
had  become  disgusted  with  wholesale  butcheries 
and  drownings,  the  successful  party  were  re- 
solved to  find  out  some  ostensibly  less  cruel 
method  of  getting  rid  of  their  most  formidable, 
because  ablest  and  most  popular  opponents. 
They  decreed  that  they  should  be  deported, 
that  is,  banished  to  one  or  other  of  the  French 
colonies  ;  and  accordingly,  two  ships  of  war  suc- 
cessively carried  over  above  100  victims,  some 


228  THE    MARTYRS 


of  them  among  the  most  accomplished  and  able 
public  men  in  France,  to  French  Guyana. 
These  men  were  martyrs  to  philosophy,  for  of 
religion,  alas  !  they  seem  to  have  had  little  or 
none  ;  and  their  experience,  as  recorded  in  the 
still  extant  narratives  of  two  of  them,  is  highly 
interesting  and  instructive.  It  exhibits  philos- 
ophy— the  refined  and  enlightened  philosophy 
of  French  liberal  politicians  in  the  18th  centu- 
ry— under  suffering  for  consistency  ;  it  shows 
what  resources  that  philosophy  can  afford  to  her 
martyrs,  when  banished  from  friends  and  home, 
and  left  to  find  happiness  in  their  own  minds, 
instead  of  the  excitement  of  democratical  arid 
revolutionary  politics.  The  result  says  little 
indeed  for  philosophy.  Her  martyrs  are  repre- 
sented by  two  of  their  own  number,  who  seem 
to  have  had  every  wish  to  speak  well  of  their 
fellow-victims,  as  peevish,  despairing,  and  full 
of  a  spirit  of  bitter  defiance  and  revenge.  Most 
of  them  were  placed  at  a  solitary  fort,  near  the 
mouth  of  one  of  those  innumerable  streams  that 
drag  their  languid  courses  through  the  fens  and 
forests  of  that  part  of  South  America  to  the  sea. 
One  made  the  woods  resound  to  his  curses  of 


OP    THE    BASS.  229 

his  enemies  who  had  sent  him  there,  and  with 
vain  calls  for  justice  ;  another  constructed  mu- 
sical instruments  for  the  negroes  to  dance  to  ; 
a  third,  the  ablest  and  most  accomplished  pro- 
bably of  them  all,  carried  on  an  innocent,  but 
ignoble  warfare  against  the  insects  and  reptiles 
that  invaded  their  huts  ;  and  all,  instead  of 
being  knit  together  by  suffering  in  a  common 
cause,  and  common  calamity,  engaged  in  angry 
controversies  and  contentions,  such  as  the  nar- 
rator confesses  himself  ashamed  to  detail. 

It  is  true  there  was  much,  in  the  climate  and 
in  the  manner  in  which  they  were  treated,  that 
might  go  far  to  palliate  their  complaints ;  but 
let  it  not  be  thought  that  the  prisoners  of 
the  Bass  were  exempt  from  severe  hardships. 
Some,  such  as  that  great  and  good  man  the  Rev. 
John  Blackadder,  had  their  deaths  hastened,  if 
not  purely  caused,  by  those  hardships  ;  and 
what  health  there  was  among  them,  must  have 
been  very  much  owing  to  the  cheerfulness  with 
which  they  submitted  to  the  will  of  God  in 
their  sufferings,  and  to  the  uninterrupted  em- 
ployment of  their  minds  in  healthful  exercises. 
Ao;ain  let  us  hear  Mr.  Fraser  : — 


230  THE    MARTYRS 

"  But  prisons  must  be  prisons,"  says  he,  "  and 
all  afflictions,  though  ever  so  well  sweetened, 
will  be  in  some  measure  grievous.  Though  the 
Lord  was  pleased  '  to  stay  his  rough  wind  in 
the  day  of  his  east  wind,'  and  to  put  a  very 
light  yoke  upon  our  necks,  yet  was  it  still  a 
yoke,  and  some  bitter  ingredients  were  mixed 
in  this  cup  ;  something  of  the  gall  and  vinegar 
we  found,  both  that  the  Lord  might  discover  to 
the  world  the  cruel  nature  of  the  spirit  of  pre- 
lacy, that  our  patience  and  faith  might  be  bet- 
ter exercised,  and  finally  to  wean  us  from  the 
world,  and  to  sweeten  to  us  the  love  of  God. 
For,  it  could  not  be  but  sad  to  me  and  my  bre- 
thren, to  think  that  we  were  cast  out  of  the 
vineyard  and  become  useless,  our  commission 
being  taken  from  us,  so  that  we  could  not  glo- 
rify God  as  we  had  done.  Absence  from  natu- 
ral and  civil  relations  and  friends  was  bitter ; 
now  we  might  say,  i  Lover  and  friend  hast  thou 
removed  from  us.' — Ps.  Ixxxviii.  18.  The  com- 
pany of  the  ungodly,  to  whose  hands  we  were 
delivered,  and  who  ruled  over  us,  who  knew 
nothing  of  God,  but  were  enemies  to  him,  was 
grievous.  *  *  The  days  of  old,  when  the 


OF    THE    BASS.  231 

candle  of  the  Lord  shone  upon  our  tabernacle, 
when  my  wife,  children,  and  relations  were 
about  me,  when  I  went  with  the  multitude  that 
kept  holidays,  did  come  and  assault  my  remem- 
brance with  a  sensible  affecting  grief.  Our  own 
servants  were  turned  out  from  us,  and  we  were 
made  to  seek  such  as  we  knew  not ;  but  this 
turned  to  our  good  and  great  advantage.  The 
great  comfort  we  had  in  worshipping  God  to- 
gether, and  eating  together,  was  taken  from  us 
by  the  folly  or  the  fear  of  some,  and  envy  and 
malice  of  others,  who  grudged  us  this  comfort, 
and  made  us  separate  in  worship  and  diet, 
whereby  our  expenses  were  much  increased,  and 
we  deprived  of  the  benefit  of  the  variety  of 
gifts.  Our  letters  that  came  to,  or  were  sent 
by  us,  were  all  looked  over  many  times,  although 
there  was  no  order  to  that  effect.*  Our  drink 
was  dear  and  exceedingly  bad  ;  we  behoved  to 
take  it  from  our  governors,  and  to  pay  exorbi- 
tantly for  it.  Sometimes  when  they  would  take 
it  into  their  heads,  they  would  shut  us  all  close 

up,  and  not  suffer  any  of  us  to  speak  to  another, 

i 

*  Such  an  order  seems   not  to  have  been   issued   till 
some  years  afterwards,  in  July  1683, 


232  THE    MARTYRS 


and  this  contrary  to  the  council's  order,  who 
committed  us  free  prisoners,  and  to  have  the 
liberty  of  the  rock.  This  unwarranted  restraint 
did  sometimes  afflict  us,  but  our  patience  over- 
came it.  They  vexed  us  by  mixing  in  our  com- 
pany, and  there  blaspheming  sometimes,  and 
other  times  seeking  to  ensnare  us  by  the  words 
of  our  lips,  and  tabling  discourses  of  public 
matters  which,  seeing  their  malicious  ends,  we 
shunned.  They  labored  to  debauch  our  maid- 
servants, on  purpose  to  reflect  upon  us,  inso- 
much that  we  hardly  could  get  one  to  wait  on 
us.  They  kept  the  poor  soldiers  and  others 
from  conversing  with,  or  hearing  us  on  the 
Lord's  day,  although  the  poor  creatures  would 
gladly  have  done  so.  At  the  same  time,  like- 
wise, I  was  very  untenderly  handled  by  some 
false  brethren  engaged  in  the  same  public  cause 
with  ourselves.  We  were  sometimes  in  winter 
and  spring  very  hardly  put  to  for  want  of  vic- 
tuals and  drink,  insomuch  that  we  had  only 
snow  water,  or  corrupted  water  sprinkled  with 
a  little  oat-meal,  to  drink,  and  some  dry  fish  ; 
these,  with  other  things,  made  our  lives  some- 
thing, and  at  some  times,  bitter  to  us." 


OP    THE    BASS.  233 


He  does  not  say  who  the  brethren  were  by 
whom  he  and  his  fellow-prisoners  were  "  unten- 
derly  handled,"  whether  the  indulged  ministers 
from  whom  they  differed,  by  refusing  favors  at 
the  hand  of  the  Government,  or  the  more  fiery 
spirits  who  went  to  the  other  extreme  of  at- 
tempting to  subvert  that  Government  by  the 
force  of  arms,  before  God's  time  had  come. 
Whichever  extreme  it  was  that  treated  them  in 
life  so  untenderly,  it  well  becomes  us  who  tread 
in  their  footsteps,  to  deal  tenderly  by  their  me- 
mories. 

Mr.  Fraser  seems  to  have  enjoyed,  on  his 
Patmos,  the  invaluable  blessing  of  uninterrupt- 
ed good  health.  Not  so  with  another  of  its 
martyrs,  the  Rev.  John  Blackadder,  minister 
of  Troqueer,  near  Dumfries,  and  father  of  that 
well-known  Christian  soldier,  Colonel  Blackad- 
der, whose  memoirs  are  so  deservedly  popular. 
From,  a  MS.  account  of  the  father's  sufferings 
by  one  of  his  sons,  in  the  Advocates'  Library, 
We  learn,  that 

"  The  Bass  was  a  base,  cold,  unwholesome 
prison  ;  all  their  rooms  ordinarily  full  of  smoke, 
like  to  suffocate  and  choke  them,  so  as  my  fa- 


234  THE    MARTYRS 

ther  and  the  other  prisoners  were  necessitate, 
many  a  time,  to  thrust  head  and  shoulders  out 
of  the  windows  to  recover  breath.  They  were 
obliged  to  drink  the  twopenny  ale  of  the  gov- 
ernor's brewing,  scarce  worth  a  half-penny  a 
pint,  and  several  times  were  sorely  put  to  it  for 
want  of  victuals  for  ten  or  twelve  days  toge- 
ther— the  boats  not  daring  to  venture  to  them 
by  reason  of  stormy  weather."* 

Mr.  Eraser's  imprisonment  on  the  Bass  com- 
menced in  1677,  when  he  was  in  the  prime  of 
life,  having  been  born  in  1639  ;  Mr.  Blackad- 
der's  began  in  1681,  and,  as  he  was  born  in 
1615,  he  was  then  well-stricken  in  years,  and 
his  constitution,  moreover,  had  been  evidently 
much  weakened  by  a  life  of  almost  incredible 
labor,  and  by  sufferings  arising  from  persecu- 
tion and  repeated  illness.  Referring  the  read- 
er to  his  Memoirs,  already  quoted,  for  the  par- 
ticulars of  his  history,  we  shall  extract  from 
that  work  the  following  passages  relating  to  the 
close  of  his  course  on  earth  : — 

"  After  Mr.  Blackadder  had  continued  about 

*  See  Memoirs  of  the  Rev.  John  Blackadder,  &c.,  &c., 
by  Andrew  Crichton.    Edinburgh,  1823. 


OF    THE    BASS.  235 


four  years  in  prison,  his  health  became  so  much 
impaired  by  the  ungenial  air  of  the  place,  as  to 
endanger  his  life.  His  friends  in  Edinburgh, 
having  laid  before  the  council  an  attested  decla- 
ration of  his  indisposition,  gave  in  a  petition 
(June  20,  1685),  "  craving  liberty  for  him  to  be 
brought  to  Edinburgh,  where  he  might  have  ac- 
cess to  physicians  and  medicines  (he  being  dan- 
gerously sick  of  complicated  disorders),  and  to 
die  with  his  wife  and  children." 

The  answer  to  this,  as  given  at  length  in  the 
Memoirs,  is  perhaps  the  most  complete  piece  of 
mockery  that  ever  emanated  from  a  royal  coun- 
cil. It  bears  that  the  prisoner  was  to  be  allow- 
ed to  leave  the  Bass  only  to  go  as  a  prisoner  to 
"  the  tolbuith  of  Dunbar,  or  Haddington,  as  he 
shall  choose,"  and  that  he  shall  re-enter  himself 
prisoner  within  the  said  isle  of  Bass,  against  the 
first  Thursday  of ,  &c.,  "under  the  pe- 
nalty of  5000  merks,  in  case  of  failzie  in  any  of 
the  aforesaid  premises." 

Now,  when  it  is  remembered  what  sort  of 
places  the  old  Scotch  "  tolbuiths"  were,  and  how 
amply  they  met  that  principle  of  our  old  crimi- 
nal law  that  the  squalor  carceris  should  form 


236  THE    MARTYRS 


an  essential  part  of  every  prisoner's  punish- 
ment, we  can  give  a  serious  meaning  to  this  ex- 
traordinary act  of  grace,  only  by  supposing  that 
what  the  royal  councillors  had  in  their  eye  was 
the  5000  merks  which  they  might  hope  Mr.  B.'s 
friends  would  rather  forfeit  than  suffer  the  ve- 
nerable old  man  to  perish,  while  bandied  from 
the  dungeons  of  the  Bass  to  those  of  the  main- 
land and  back  again.  This  is  the  more  likely, 
as  the  caution  was  singularly  enough  required, 
not  of  the  magistrates  and  jailors,  but  of  the 
prisoner  himself,  as  Mr.  B.  justly  remarks  in 
his  letter  to  his  friends  on  the  subject. 

That  letter  gives  substantial  reasons  for  his 
declining  the  offered  favor.  He  remarks,  that 
as  his  dysentery  was  better,  though  his  rheu- 
matism was  returning  ;  and  as,  instead  of  hav- 
ing access  to  physicians  and  medicines  at  Edin- 
burgh, he  would  but  exchange  one  prison  for 
another,  no  better,  or  rather  with  more  incon- 
veniences, he  was  constrained  rather  to  choose 
to  take  God's  venture,  in  staying  where  he  was, 
whether  to  live  or  die,  unless  they  could  obtain 
leave  for  him  either  to  be  attended  by  his  wife 
and  children  at  his  own  house,  or  to  have  his 


OP    THE    BASS.  237 

imprisonment  at  Haddington  reduced  to  con- 
finement in  a  chamber  there,  upon  caution  to 
keep  that  confinement.  And,  at  the  close,  it  is 
interesting  to  see  how  this  aged  man  of  God  re- 
solves to  maintain  to  his  last  breath  an  unre- 
stricted freedom  to  preach  the  0-ospel,  in  as  far 
as  the  engagements  of  his  friends  were  con- 
cerned : 

"I  hope  it  will  be  needless  that  I  repeat  it," 
says  he,  "  again  and  again  to  you,  that  no  order 
be  extracted  from  me  but  what  you  or  other 
trusty  friends  see  has  no  engagement  on  me  or 
my  cautioner  to  lay  any  restraint  upon  my  min- 
istry, or  the  exercise  thereof,  for  that  is  ab- 
solutely our  of  my  power,  being  only  intrusted 
to  follow  my  Lord  and  Master's  call  and  plea- 
sure therein,  although  I  be  in  little  case,  or  like 
to  be,  to  discharge  any  of  the  duties  thereof." 

This  breathes  the  true  spirit  of  a  minister  of 
Jesus  Christ.  Come  weal,  come  woe,  the  Word 
of  God  must  not  be  bound.  Why  is  it  that 
Scotland  at  this  day  presents  so  striking  a  con- 
trast to  France,  where  a  Church  professing  the 
same  doctrines,  was.  at  that  very  time,  subject- 
ed to  persecutions  so  very  similar  to  those  un- 


238  THE    MARTYRS 


der  which  our  fathers  groaned,  and  was  utterly 
crushed  beneath  them  ?  To  nothing,  under 
God,  can  we  more  justly  ascribe  this  difference, 
than  to  the  fact,  that  the  French  Reformed 
Churches,  from  their  acceptance  of  the  edict  of 
Nantes  downwards,  fell  into  the  fatal  course  of 
accepting  indulgences,  in  which  they  consented 
to  limitations  and  restrictions  on  the  ministry, 
while,  in  Scotland,  and  more  particularly  with 
the  ministers  confined  on  the  Bass,  all  such  fa- 
vors were  at  once  put  away. 

The  second  application  was  made,  and  again 
repeated,  on  his  distemper  becoming  more 
alarming.  At  length,  on  the  3d  of  December, 
1685,  leave  was  granted  for  his  coming  to  Edin- 
burgh. But  it  arrived  too  late.  Before  he 
could  take  advantage  of  it,  the  worthy  old  man 
was  released  by  a  higher  order,  and  escaped  far 
beyond  the  reach  of  all  further  persecution. 
His  earthly  remains  were  buried  in  the  church- 
yard of  North  Berwick,  where  a  handsome 
tombstone,  repaired  and  relettered  in  1821,  at 
the  expense  of  several  gentlemen  in  the  neigh- 
borhood, marks  the  spot.  The  lines  engraved 


OP    THE    BASS.  239 

on  it  are  rough  and  quaint,  but  far  from  defec- 
tive in  point  of  meaning. 

EPITAPH. 

"  Blest  John,  for  Jesus'  sake,  in  Patmos  bound, 
His  prison  Bethel,  Patmos  Pisgah  found ; 
So  the  bless'd  John,  on  yonder  rock  confin'd — 
His  body  suffer'd,  but  no  chains  could  bind 
His  heav'n  aspiring  soul ;  while  day  by  day, 
As  from  mount  Pisgah's  top,  he  did  survey 
The  promis'd  land,  and  view'd  the  crown  by  faith, 
Laid  up  for  those  who  faithful  are  till  death : 
Grace  form'd  him  in  the  Christian  hero's  mould — 
Meek  in  his  own  concerns — in  's  Master's  bold ; 
Passions  to  reason  chain'd,  Prudence  did  lead — 
Zeal  warm'd  his  breast,  and  Reason  cool'd  his  head. 
Five  years  on  the  bare  rock,  ye.t  sweet  abode, 
He,  Enoch-like,  enjoy'd  and  walk'd  with  God ; 
Till  by  long  living  on  this  heav'nly  food, 
His  soul  by  love  grew  up.  too  great,  too  good 
To  be  confin'd  to  jail,  or  flesh  and  blood. 
Death  broke  his  fetters  off,  then  swift  he  fled 
From  sin  and  sorrow  ;  and,  by  angels  led, 
Enter'd  the  mansions  of  eternal  joy ; — 
Blest  soul,  thy  warfare's  o'er ;  praise,  love,  enjoy  ; 
His  dust  here  rests  till  Jesus  come  again — 
Even  so,  bless'd  Jesus  !  come — come,  Lord !  Amen."* 

We  have  seen  how  careful  Mr.  Blackadder 
was  to  the  last,  of  the  great   commission  and 

*  See  Collection  of  Epi'taphs.     Glasgow,  MacVean,  1834, 
p.  343. 


240 


THE    MARTYRS 


privilege  of  a  minister  of  Christ,  to  preach  the 
gospel  to  perishing  sinners,  in  season  and  out 
of  season,  according  as  his  Master  might  call, 
and  whether  the  civil  magistrate  should  inter- 
dict him  or  not.  In  our  own  days,  alas  !  we 
live  to  see  the  civil  magistrate,  for  civil  causes, 
sometimes  on  the  ground  of  the  respect  due  to 
statute  law,  sometimes  on  that  of  the  rights  of 
property,  attempt  to  coerce  the  ministers  of  the 
Gospel  into  the  suppression  of  their  message, 
or  the  abandonment,  as  in  the  case  of  the  quoad 
sacra  ministers,  of  a  part  of  their  peculiar 
functions  and  authority.  Many  are  now  suf- 
fering for  their  resistance  to  both  assaults  on 
their  ministerial  character,  and  as  a  further 
proof  how  closely  their  testimony  resembles 
that  for  maintaining  which  some  of  the  Bass 
prisoners  suffered  170  years  ago,  we  extract 
a  part,  and  our  space  allows  only  a  part,  of 
the  examination  of  Mr.  Archibald  Riddel, 
another  of  those  prisoners,  as  detailed  at  great 
length  by  Wodrow  [book  iii.  ch.  iv.]  We  give 
part  of  the  questions  and  answers  here  for  the 
same  reason  that  induced  Wodrow  to  give  the 
whole—"  in  order,"  says  he,  "  that  from  them 


OP    THE    BASS.  241 


the  reader  may  gather  the  temper  of  this  period, 
and  guess  at  the  methods  taken  with  others,  of 
whom  I  have  not  so  distinct  accounts."  The 
whole  was  taken  from  Mr.  Riddel's  own  notes, 
written  immediately  on  his  return  to  prison,  and 
when  what  had  passed  was  fresh  in«his  memory. 
The  date  is  1680. 

"  Linllthgow. — Have  you  kept  any  field  con- 
venticles since  the  indemnity  ?  Ans. — Since 
that  time,  my  lord,  I  never  preached  out  of  a 
house." 

The  prisoner  being  asked  to  swear,  states  his 
scruples  about  swearing,  and  confines  himself 
to  his  solemn  affirmation. 

"  The  Advocate. — Mr.  Riddel,  your  answer 
to  my  Lord  Linlithgow  was — You  have  not 
preached  out  of  a  house  ;  but  I  suppose  you  are 
not  ignorant  that  albeit  a  minister  preach  within 
a  house,  yet  if  there  be  hearers  without  doors, 
by  the  law  that  is  constructed  to  be  a  field  con- 
venticle— I  desire,  therefore,  you  will  positively 
answer  me  this  question,  Whether  or  not,  when 
you  preached  within  a  house,  was  there  any 
hearing  you  without  doors  ?  Ans. — Indeed,  my 
lord,  I  cannot  deny  that,  Adv. — We  would  not 
11 


242  THE    MARTYRS 

expect  any  man  of  such  a  peaceable  disposition 
as  Mr.  Riddel  seems  to  be,  would  so  far  contemn 
authority,  as  not  to  forbear  to  act  contrary  to 
law.  Ans. — My  lord,  when  there  do  convene 
more  than  the  house  can  contain,  and  I  am 
called  to  preach  to  them,  dare  I  either  dismiss 
the  Assembly  without  preaching,  because  the 
house  will  not  hold  them,  or  refuse  to  preach  to 
them,  until  all  without  doors  remove  ?  Really, 
my  lord,  I  durst  not  do  so  upon  the  greatest 
hazard.  Adv. — It  is  most  unreasonable  that 
every  subject  should  take  upon  him  to  judge 
and  determine,  at  his  pleasure,  of  what  is  lawful 
and  convenient,  and  not  to  be  determined  by  the 
laws  of  the  land.  This  is  so  absurd  and  ridicu- 
lous that  it  destroys  the  end  of  all  laws,  and 
makes  every  man  supreme  to  do  what  he  pleases. 
Ans. — My  lord,  it  cannot,  I  suppose,  be  denied, 
that  every  subject  must  be  allowed  to  exercise 
a  judgment  of  discretion  in  reference  to  his  own 
actions,  and  as  your  lordship  judges  that  it  is 
the  duty  of  subjects  to  know  the  laws  of  the 
land,  and  to  practise  accordingly,  so  since  it  is 
certain  that  the  God  of  heaven  hath  given  laws  to 
all  subjects  as  well  as  rulers,  subjects  both  may 


OF    THE    BASS.  243 


and  ought  to  know  these  laws  ;  and  if  I,  know- 
ing both  God's  laws  and  the  laws  of  the  land, 
find  the  one  contrary  to  the  other,  undoubtedly 
God's  laws  should  have  the  preference.  Adv. — I 
think  it  strange  that  any  should  be  so  absurd 
as  to  disturb  the  peace  of  a  land  for  such  a  busi- 
ness, as  whether  persons  should  keep  within 
doors  or  not  in  preaching.  If  we  were  quarrel- 
ling, Mr.  Riddel,  for  preaching  simply,  it  were 
somewhat,  but  to  contemn  and  irritate  authority, 
by  preaching  to  persons  without  doors,  is  in- 
tolerable. Ans. — My  lord,  if  there  were  a  full 
and  free  liberty  for  preaching  in  houses,  it  is 
likely  the  people,  in  process  of  time,  might  so 
accommodate  themselves,  that  there  should  be 
no  provoking  the  magistrate  by  there  being  any 
without  doors ;  but  now  poor  people  are  so  dogged 
and  distressed,  that  preaching  can  hardly  be 
had  in  ten  miles  of  way ;  and  when  I  am  called 
to  preach,  and  scarce  a  house  can  be  had  that 
will  contain  thirty  or  forty  persons,  and  all  the 
rest  must  be  without,  shall  the  people  who  come 
ten  miles  or  more  to  hear  a  sermon,  be  thrust 
away  as  they  came?  Surely  if  I  be  called  to 
preach  at  all,  I  may  not  decline  it  in  any  case. 


244  THE    MARTYRS 

*****  Adv. — If  I  were  of  Mr.  Riddel's  prin- 
ciples, and  did  judge  the  laws  of  the  land  were 
contrary  to  the  laws  of  God,  and  that  I  could 
not  conform  to  them,  I  would  judge  it  my  duty 
to  go  out  of  the  nation,  and  live  elsewhere,  than 
disturb  the  peace  of  the  land,  by  acting  contrary 
to  its  laws.  Ans. — My  lord,  if  I  do  anything 
contrary  to  the  laws,  I  am  liable  to  the  punish- 
ment due  by  the  law.  Adv. — That  is  not  suffi- 
cient ;  a  subject  that  regards  the  public  good  of 
the  land,  should,  for  the  peace  and  welfare 
thereof,  either  conform  to  the  law  or  go  out  of 
the  land.  Ans. — My  lord,  I  doubt  that  argu- 
ment would  militate  against  Christ  and  his 
apostles  as  much  as  against  us,  who  both  preach- 
ed and  acted  otherwise  against  the  laws  of  the 
land ;  and  not  only  did  not  judge  it  their  duty 
to  go  out  of  the  land,  but  the  apostles  on  the 
contrary,  reasoned  with  the  rulers,  whether  it 
be  better  to  obey  God  or  man,  judge  ye." 

Here  the  bishop,  Mr.  Wodrow  supposes  of 
Edinburgh,  breaks  in,  admitting'  that  Mr.  Rid- 
del, whom  he  speaks  of  as  a  gentleman  of  ancient 
and  honorable  family,  was  right  in  insisting  that 
as  a  minister  he  ought  at  all  hazards  to  preach, 


OF    THE    BASS.  245 


but  quibbles  on  the  point,  that  preaching  did 
not  necessarily  imply  preaching  out  of  a  house, 
or  to  persons  out  of  a  house,  and  insists,  that  as 
Mr.  Riddel  could  not  pretend  to  an  ordinary 
call,  since  that  must  be  determined  by  the  laws 
in  being,  he  ought  to  Jiave  miracles  to  appeal  to 
in  proof  of  an  extraordinary  call. 

Another  of  the  Bass  martyrs  was  the  Rev. 
John  Dickson,  minister  of  Rutherglen  before 
the  Restoration,  and  restored  to  his  parish  at 
the  Revolution.  He  was  confined  for  seven  long 
years  on  the  Bass.  From  two  letters  written 
by  him  from  that  Patmos,  and  afterwards  printed, 
we  find  that  he  must  have  been  a  man  of  genius 
and  eloquence — his  style  reminding  us  of  the 
fervor  of  Gillespie,  and  the*  exuberant  fancy  of 
Rutherfurd.  We  shall  subjoin  a  few  specimens, 
the  letters  being,  no  doubt,  extremely  rare. 
First,  take  a  few  of  his  pithy  sentences  : — 
"  An  idle  soul  is  Satan's  workshop,  where  he 
forgeth  all  his  temptations. — Christ  is  sweet 
company,  especially  to  prisoners  and  wanderers, 
violently  separated  from  friends  and  relations. 
Solitariness  with  Christ  is  heaven  upon  earth. — 
Conscience  is  the  echo  and  doomster  of  the 


246  THE    MARTYRS 

Spirit  of  God,  the  lyon-herald  echoing,  the  lyon- 
king-at-arms  publishing  the  will  of  the  King  of 
kings. — Do  not  blemish  your  duties,  nor  make 
yourself  burdensome  to  others  by  tedious  forms. 
The  life  of  religion  consists  in  an  indivisibility ; 
it  is  contracted  into  a  narrow  point ;  a  sigh,  a 
groan,  a  tear,  hath  volumes  of  prayers  concentred 
in  them.  Yet  who  can  bound  the  Spirit  of  God  ? 
When  it  flows,  and  overflows,  to  put  a  stop  to  it 
were  dangerous.  But  this  falls  out  at  extraor- 
dinary times. — Idol  self  is  God's  great  antago- 
nist.— Be  not  curious  in  inquiring  after  news  ; 
this  flows  from  an  Athenian  curiosity,  blowing 
up  the  spirit  with  wind  and  froth,  sorrow  or 
anxiety.  Yet  Nehemiah  may  profitably  ask 
Hanani,  How  it  fares  with  God's  interest  at 
Jerusalem ;  and  Jeremiah  makes  choice  of  a 
solitary  cottage  in  the  wilderness,  to  be  by  the 
road  of  way-faring  men.  Curiosity  in  inquiring 
in  such  cases,  by  such  persons,  edgeth  the  se- 
rious sorrowful  soul  to  sympathy. — Glory  not 
over  thy  neighbor's  infirmities,  for  the  fountain 
whence  they  flow  is  within  thee. — Natural, 
moral,  or  gracious  endowments  are  not  of  thy 
cutting  and  carving,  neither  within  the  reach  of 


OF    THE    BASS. 


thy  line  and  plummet. — If  any  be  of  a  factious 
spirit,  avoid  his  company,  else  thou  wilt  take 
fire  into  thy  bosom  and  be  burnt. — Depend  much 
upon  Providence,  whether  as  to  thy  meat,  cloth- 
ing, or  provision  for  thy  family.  Naked  came 
we  into  the  world,  and  naked  shall  we  go  out  of 
it ;  the  militant  Church  »is  all  hanging  by  a 
small,  though  strong,  thread  of  quotidian  (daily) 
Providence.75 

The  following  passage,  like  a  thousand  others, 
may  be  adduced  in  proof  of  the  humble  and 
peaceful  spirit  of  a  body  of  men  whom  it  has 
been  common  to  denounce  as  proud  and  imprac- 
ticable fanatics  : — 

"  Beware  of  spiritual  pride  ;  study  humili- 
ty ;  let  each  esteem  another  better  than  him- 
self. — The  Lord  loves  and  dwells  in  the  humble 
and  contrite  spirit,  and  the  proud  he  knows  afar 
off,  and  resists.  Speak  not  evil  one  to  (of) 
another.  Away  with  whisperings  and  back-bit- 
ings,  these  are  in  the  black  roll  (Rom.  i.),  for 
which  the  wrath  of  God  cometh  on  our  atheisti 
cal  generation.  Kevile  none,  of  whatsoever 
quality,  place  or  station.  Remember,  that 
Michael  disputing  with  the  devil  about  the  body 


248  THE    MARTYRS 

of  Moses,  brought  no  railing  accusation  against 
him.  Bear  with  affronts,  injuries,  reproaches  ; 
vengeance  is  mine,  and  I  will  recompense,  saith 
the  Lord.  This  is  a  time  wherein  offences 
abound,  wherein  corruption  and  humors  are 
irritated  ;  and  Satttn  loves  to  fish  in  such  muddy 
waters,  occasioning  ruptures  and  discords  among 
the  people  of  God,  whom  resist  stedfast  in  the 
faith.  Guard  strongly  against  the  spirit  of  re- 
venge, for  Satan  blows  the  coal  towards  the 
utter  breaking  of  the  peace  and  tranquillity  of 
the  soul.  Be  not  too  credulous  in  receiving  re- 
ports reflecting  on  the  conscience  or  credit  of 
thy  neighbor,  but  hear  seventy-seven  times  ere 
thou  lay  much  weight  upon  the  report,  lest  thou 
be  adjudged  by  the  Lord  to  believe  a  lie,  and 
thence  appear  more  the  servant  of  Satan  than 
of  the  Lord.  *  *  i  Be  careful  for  nothing,  but  in 
everything,  by  prayer  and  supplication,  make 
known  your  desires  unto  God.'  Anxiety  is  a 
canker  worm  that  eats  away  the  sweet  life  of  a 
Christian.  It  doth  not  add  to,  but  diminish 
from  the  perfections  of  the  soul.  Who  is  he 
that,  by  taking  thought,  can  add  one  cubit 
unto  his  stature  ?  Fear  not  future  wants  or 


OF    THE    BASS.  249 

losses,  lest  thou  reflect  upon  God's  faithfulness 
in  his  promise,  and  upon  his  providence  in 
governing  the  world  whereof  thou  art  a^part. 
The  birds  of  the  air  feed  cheerfully  without  fear 
of  want,  and  sleep  sweetly  in  their  nests,  when 
they  know  not  where  to  get  their  breakfast 
to-morrow  ;  and  thou  art  much  better  than  many 
sparrows."*  &c.  &c. 

Alexander  Peden,t  the  pious  and  self-deny- 
ing Scottish  martyr,  was  also  one  of  the  pris 
oners  of  the  Bass,  as  appears  by  the  following 
act,  dated  26th  June,  1673  :— 

"  The  Lords  of  his  Majesty's  Privy  Council 
do  recommend  to  the  Lords  Register  and  Advo- 
cate, or  any  one  of  them,  to  call  for  and  exam- 
ine Mr.  Alexander  Peden,  prisoner  in  the  Tol- 
booth,  for  being  in  the  rebellion  in  the  year 
1666,  and  who  was  lately  apprehended  keeping 
a  conventicle ;  and  thereafter  ordain  him  to  be 

*  See  "A  Copy  OF  A  LETTER  BY  MR.  JOHN  DICKSON, 
late  Minister  of  the  Gospel  in  RutJierglen,  to  some  friends 
when  he  10 as  prisoner  in  the  BASS  :"  kindly  communicated  by 
David  Laing,  Esq. 

f  This  account  of  Peden  is  condensed  from  a  very  inter- 
esting work  by  the  Eev.  James  Anderson  on  the  Martyrs 
of  the  Bass. 

11* 


250  THE    MARTYRS 

transported  by  five  or  six  of  the  guard  from 
the  Tolbooth  of  Edinburgh  to  the  Isle  of  Bass, 
and  to  be  delivered  to  the  governor  of  the  gar- 
rison there,  who  is  hereby  ordered  to  keep  him 
close  prisoner  until  farther  order." 

Peden,  there  is  every  reason  to  believe,  was 
confined  in  the  Bass  upwards  of  four  years. 
When  he  first  entered,  his  only  fellow-prisoner 
was  Mr.  Kobert  Gillespie  ;  but  afterwards  fresh 
prisoners  were  added,  ^consisting  of  a  number 
of  eminent  ministers  of  the  same  principles  and 
character  with  himself,  as  Mr.  Thomas  Boss, 
Mr.  James  Fraser  of  Brea,  Mr.  John  M'Gilli- 
gen,  and  others.  It  would  have  been  a  comfort 
to  him  and  them,  and  would  have  lessened  the 
weight  of  their  afflictions,  had  they  been  per- 
mitted to  enjoy  each  other's  society.  Some- 
times they  had  permission  granted  them  to  as- 
semble together  for  devotional  exercises  in  the 
morning  and  evening  ;  and  to  men  of  kindred 
spirits,  and  who  were  suffering  in  the  same 
cause,  it  would  be  exceedingly  refreshing  to 
join  together  in  reading  the  Scriptures,  and  in 
pouring  out  their  united  prayers  at  the  throne 
of  grace.  But  at  other  times  they  were  wholly 


OF    THE    BASS.  251 

deprived  of  all  mutual  intercourse,  and  closely 
shut  up  in  their  separate  cells.  The  Privy 
Council,  on  the  26th  of  July,  1677,  made  an 
act,  partially  removing  such  rigorous  confine- 
ment, but  still  leaving  them  under  restrictions 
sufficiently  severe  : — 

"  The  Lords  of  his  Majesty's  Privy  Council 
do  hereby  give  order  and  warrant  to  the  keeper 
of  the  Isle  of  the  Bass,  to  permit  and  allow  the 
prisoners  in  the  said  isle  to  have  the  liberty  of 
the  isle  in  the  day-time,  betwixt  stin-rising  and 
sun-setting,  provided  that  he  permit  none  but 
two  of  them  at  once  to  have  that  liberty  ;  and 
that  he  shut  up  these  two  before  he  allow  the 
other  two  to  come  out." 

It  was  no  doubt  some  small  mitigation  for  two 
of  them  to  be  allowed  to  walk  together  for  a 
few  hours  upon  the  island.  The  fresh  air  would 
invigorate  their  health  and  revive  their  spirits, 
while  their  mutual  converse  and  sympathy  would 
strengthen  one  another's  faith,  fortitude,  and 
patience.  But  during  all  the  other  part  of  the 
twenty-four  hours,  each  was  shut  up  in  entire 
seclusion  in  his  own  cell.  To  the  sufferer  thus 
pent  up  for  years  in  an  unwholesome  dungeon, 


_J 


252  THE    MARTYRS 

by  which  the  energy  of  the  nervous  system  is 
weakened,  and  the  elasticity  of  the  spirits  bro- 
ken, more  fortitude  is  often  required  than  to 
brave  on  the  field  of  action,  and  in  the  moment 
of  excitement,  the  terrors  of  death.  The  hero- 
ism which  has  nobly  acquitted  itself  in  the  lat- 
ter case,  has  been  subdued  by  the  sufferings  of 
the  former.  Yet  Peden,  though  feeling  acutely 
the  rigor  and  hardships  of  his  imprisonment, 
sustained  them  with  a  resigned  and  submissive 
mind. 

On  the  9th  of  October,  1677,  the  Council, 
agreeably  to  the  opinion  expressed  by  their 
Committee  for  Public  Affairs,  conclude,  "  that 
Mr.  Alexander  Peden,  prisoner  in  the  Bass,  be 
liberated,  he  enacting  himself  in  the  books  of 
Council,  to  take  banishment  out  of  Scotland, 
England,  and  Ireland,  upon  him,  with  certifica- 
tion if  he  shall  return,  he  shall  be  holden  pro 
confesso  as  having  been  in  the  rebellion  in  the 
year  1666,  and  proceeded  against  and  punished 
accordingly." 

Notwithstanding  this  act,  he  was  still  kept  a 
prisoner.  It  is,  however,  probable,  that  at  this 
time  he  was  brought  from  the  Bass  and  put  in- 


OP    THE    BASS.  253 

to  the  Tolbooth  of  Edinburgh,  where  he  appears 
to  have  remained  upwards  of  a  year ;  as  may 
be  inferred  from  a  petition  presented  by  him  to 
the  Privy  Council  on  the  14th  of  November, 
1678,  praying  to  be  liberated  from  the  Tolbooth 
of  Edinburgh,  in  which  he  says  he  had  lain  for 
a  long  time,  and  to  be  permitted  to  go  to  Ire- 
land, where  he  had  formerly  resided  for  several 
years.  But  the  Council,  though  no  libel  had 
ever  been  given  in  against  him,  and  though  he 
was  not  charged  either  with  house  or  field  con- 
venticles in  Scotland  now  for  twelve  years,  re- 
fused to  grant  his  petition,  and  banished  him  to 
the  plantations  in  America,  discharging  him 
ever  to  return  under  the  penalty  of  death.  In 
December,  he  and  sixty  more  prisoners,  on 
whom  the  same  sentence  of  banishment  was 
passed,  embarked  in  the  Roads  of  Leith  for 
Gravesend,  London.  On  their  arriving  at 
Gravesend,  which,  in  consequence  of  the  te- 
diousness  of  the  voyage,  was  five  days  later 
than  had  been  anticipated,  the  master  of  another 
vessel  who  was  to  carry  them  to  Virginia  not 
being  there,  the  .ship-captain  who  had  brought 
them  from  Leith,  and  who  was  engaged  to  carry 


254  THE    MARTYRS 


them  only  to  Gravesend,  finding  no  person  to 
take  them  off  his  hand,  and  grudging  the  ex- 
pense of  maintaining  them  any  longer,  sent 
them  ashore  to  shift  for  themselves  as  they  best 
could.  They  were  treated  with  much  kindness 
by  the  English,  when  they  learned  the  cause  of 
their  sufferings  ;  and  the  greater  part  reached 
their  homes  in  safety  after  an  absence  of  about 
nine  months.* 

On  the  16th  of  April  1685,  Peden  made  a 
narrow  escape.  Being  then  at  the  house  of 
John  Nisbet  of  Hardhill,  a  little  before  nine 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  a  troop  of  dragoons  was 
observed  by  the  servants  who  were  working  in 
the  fields  coming  up  to  the  house  at  full  gallop  ; 
upon  which  the  servants  ran  to  conceal  them- 
selves. Peden  and  those  who  were  with  him  in 
the  house  had  fled  for  shelter  to  a  moss  nearly 
two  miles  distant  from  the  place  where  the  ser- 
vants were  working.  The  way  to  this  moss  was 
by  very  steep  ground,  and  at  the  edge  of  the 

*  Wodrow  MSS.  vol.  xxxvii.  4to,  no.  141.  Wodrow's 
History,  vol.  ii.  pp.  476, 483.  Walker's  account  differs  from 
the  above  in  some  slight  particulars.  Wodrow  had  his  in- 
formation from  one  of  the  prisoners. 


OP    THE    BASS.  255 

moss  there  was  a  morass  about  seven  or  eight 
yards  broad,  and  altogether  the  place  was  well 
adapted  for  concealment  as  well  as  for  protec- 
tion from  military  on  horseback.  Here,  how- 
ever, Peden  and  his  companions  were  discovered. 
James,  son  of  John  Nisbet,  a  young  man  about 
sixteen  years  of  age,  had  been  with  the  servants 
in  the  field  when  the  troop  of  dragoons  came  up, 
and  in  his  flight,  being  chased  by  some  of  the 
party,  made  his  way  accidentally  to  the  spot 
where  Peden  and  about  twenty  more  were  lurk- 
ing, which  occasioned  their  being  discovered. 
The  whole  party  of  dragoons  were  quickly  in- 
formed of  the  prize  within  their  reach,  and  about 
three  hours  after  they  were  joined  by  another 
party  who  aided  them  in  the  pursuit.  Peden 
and  his  friends  observing  the  enemy  dismount- 
ing their  horses  to  take  the  moss  on  their  feet 
for  the  purpose  of  securing  them,  after  some 
firing  on  both  sides  without  effect,  drew  off  and 
kept  in  the  midst  of  the  moss.  When  the 
dragoons,  on  seeing  this,  mounted  their  horses 
again  and  pursued  them  by  the  side  of  the  moss, 
the  Covenanters  always  kept  themselves  on 
such  ground  as  the  horses  could  not  approach. 


o 
H 


OF    THE    BASS.  257 


In  such  circumstances,  we  need  not  wonder  that 
he  was  sometimes  weary  of  life,  and  envied  his 
fellow-sufferers  who  had  gone  before  him  to  re- 
ceive their  reward.  On  one  occasion,  visiting 
the  grave  of  Richard  Cameron,*  these  feelings 
rushed  powerfully  into  his  mind.  Harassed 
and  vexed,  he  sat  down  by  the  grave,  and  as  he 
thought  of  the  happiness  of  his  beloved  friend, 
who  had  exchanged  all  his  sufferings  for  the 
martyr's  crown,  while  he  himself  was  still  en- 
during the  scorching  heat  of  persecution,  meekly 
raising  his  eyes  to  heaven,  he  prayed, '"  0  to  be 
wi'  Ritchie  !"t 

John  Campbell  of  Wei  wood,  in  an  account  of 
his  own  sufferings,  during  the  persecution,  states 
the  following  facts  respecting  Peden,  with  whom 
he  spent  the  greater  part  of  this  summer  : — "  In 
a  little  time  thereafter,  [after  the  beginning  of 

*  Cameron,  with  eight* of  his  followers,  were  killed  at 
Airs -moss,  after  fighting  bravely  a  party  of  dragoons  under 
Bruce  of  Earlshall,  who  attacked  them.  Cameron's  head 
and  hands  were  cut  off  and  taken  to  Edinburgh  j  but  his 
body,  and  his  brave  comrades  who  fell,  were  buried  on  the 
spot. 

f  For  a  beautiful  description  of  this  scene  see  the  "  Lays 
of  the  Kirk  and  Covenant,"  by  Mrs.  Menteath,  published 
by  the  Carters. 


258  THE    MARTYRS 

April,  1685],  I  got  notice  of  Mr.  Alexander  Peden, 
minister,  and  went  to  him,  with  whom  I  stayed 
several  days,  having  a  little  den  underneath  the 
earth,  who  had  a  great  pressure  of  spirit  upon 
him,  and  groaned  most  of  the  night  over  in 
heaviest  manner ;  none  knowing  where  we  were 
at  first  save  one  who  brought  us  some  sustenance." 
At  length  Peden's  bodily  infirmities  increas- 
ing so  much  as  to  render  him  unable  to  travel, 
he  came  to  his  brother's  house  in  the  parish  of 
Sorn,  the  place  of  his  birth,  where  he  caused 
in  the  neighborhood  of  his  brother's  house  a 
cave  to  be  dug,  with  a  willow  bush  covering  its 
mouth.  His  persecutors  getting  information 
where  he  was,  searched  every  part  of  the  house 
on  many  occasions.  At  last,  'one  day  early  in 
the  morning,  leaving  the  cave  he  came  to  the 
door  of  his  brother's  house.  His  brother's  wife 
warned  him  of  his  danger^  and  advised  him  .to 
return  to  his  place  of  concealment.  He  told  her 
that  it  was  needless  to  do  that,  since  it  was  dis- 
covered ;  "  but,"  says  he,  "  there  is  no  matter, 
for  within  forty-eight  hours,  I  will  be  beyond 
the  reach  of  all  the  devil's  temptations,  and  his 
instruments  in  hell  and  on  earth,  and  they  shall 


OF    THE    BASS.  259 

trouble  me  no  more."  He  had  not  been  in  the 
house  above  three  hours,  when  a  party  of  soldiers 
visited  the  cave,  and  not  finding  him  there,  they 
searched  first  the  barn  and  next  the  house, 
stabbing  the  beds,  but  they  did  not  enter  the 
place  where  he  lay. 

The  prospect  of  death  and  eternity  often  soft- 
ens the  prejudices  which  the  good  man,  from 
various  causes,  may  have  imbibed  against  his 
Christian  brethren,  with  whom  he  once  lived  on 
terms  of  intimate  friendship,  and  opening,  as  it 
were,  the  sluices  of  Christian  love,  makes  him 
more  tender,  forbearing,  and  charitable  towards 
them.  It  was  so  with  Peden.  On  his  death- 
bed he  sent  for  Mr.  Ren  wick,  from  whom  he  had 
become  alienated,  by  lending  too  credulous  an 
ear  to  misrepresentation  and  reproach.  Ren- 
wick  came  to  him  with  all  haste,  and  found  him 
lying  in  very  low  circumstances,  having  few  to 
minister  to  his  comfort,  but  peaceful  and  happy 
in  mind.  Peden  raised  himself  upon  his  bed, 
leaning  on  his  elbow  with  his  head  upon  his 
hand  to  speak  to  his  interesting  visitant,  and  a 
comfortable  interview  took  place  between  them. 
"  Sit  down,  sir,"  said  the  dying  man,  "  and  give 


260  THE    MARTYRS 

me  an  account  of  your  conversion,  and  of  your 
call  to  the  ministry,  of  your  principles,  and  the 
grounds  of  your  taking  such  singular  courses  in 
withdrawing  from  all  other  ministers."  Ren- 
wick  did  so  ;  which,  when  Peden  heard,  he  said, 
"  You  have  answered  me  to  my  soul's  satisfac- 
tion, and  I  am  very  sorry  that  I  should  have 
believed  such  evil  reports  concerning  you,  which 
not  only  quenched  my  love  to  you,  and  marred 
my  sympathy  with  you,  but  led  me  to  express 
myself  bitterly  against  you."  He  desired  Ren- 
wick  to  pray  before  leaving  him,  which  he  did 
with  more  than  ordinary  freedom ;  and,  after 
prayer,  drawing  to  him  the  pious  and  noble 
youth,  he  kissed  him,  saying,  "  Sir,  I  have  found 
you  a  faithful  servant  to  your  Master  ;  go  on  in 
a  single  dependence  upon  the  Lord,  and  you 
will  get  honestly  through,  and  cleanly  off  the 
stage."* 

Peden  died  on  the  28th  of  January,  1686,  be- 

*  Our  authority  for  this  anecdote  is  Patrick  Walker. 
Biograph.  Presb.  vol.  i.  pp.  91-93.  Howie  says  that  its 
truth  has  been  doubted.  This  may  have  arisen  from  its  not 
being  recorded  in  Shield's  Life  of  Renwick ;  but  it  may 
notwithstanding  b3  founded  in  truth.  It  is  highly  honora- 
ble to  both  these  good  men. 


OF    THE    BASS.  261 


ing  upwards-  of  sixty  years  of  age,  and  was 
privately  buried  in  the  church  of  Auchinleck, 
in  the  aisle  of  David  Bos  well,  Esq.,  of  Auchin- 
leck. But  his  ashes  were  not  allowed  to  repose 
in  peace.  Though  he  had  never  been  condemn- 
ed by  any  jury,  yet  the  enemy,  being  informed 
of  his  death  and  burial,  sent  a  troop  of  dra- 
goons, who  pulled  his  corpse  out  of  the  grave 
after  it  had  lain  about  six  weeks,  and  having 
first  broken  the  chest,  exposed  his  remains  to 
contempt,  and  then  carried  them  to  the  gallows' 
foot  at  Cumnock,  two  miles  distant,  and  there 
buried  them.*  The  design  of  the  soldiers  in 
lifting  the  body,  was  to  hang  it  in  chains  upon 
the  gallows  at  Cumnock.  But  this  they  were 
prevented  from  doing.  The  Countess  of  Dum- 
fries, and  the  Lady  Affleck,  shocked  at  this  bar- 
barity, earnestly  interceded  that  the  body  might 
be  again  buried ;  and  when  the  savage  com- 
mander of  the  dragoons,  determined  to  have  it 

*  Wodrow  MSS.  vol.  xxxviii.  4to,  no.  103.  Wodrow  says 
in  his  History,  "  This  raising  him  after  ho  was  buried,  Mr. 
Peden  before  his  death  did  very  positively  foretel  before 
several  witnesses,  some  of  whom  are  yet  alive  who  were 
present,  from  whom  I  have  it,  else  I  should  not  have  no- 
ticed it  here."  Vol.  iv.  p.  396. 


262  THE    MARTYRS 


hung  up  in  chains,  proved  unrelenting,  they 
applied  to  the  Earl  of  Dumfries,  a  Privy  Coun- 
cillor, then  at  home,  who.  yielding  to  their  re- 
quest, went  to  the  gibbet  and  told  Murray  that 
it  was  erected  for  malefactors  and  murderers, 
and  not  for  such  men  as  Mr.  Peden.  The 
corpse  was  accordingly  re-interred  at  the  foot 
of  the  gibbet,  now  within  the  wall  of  the  common 
burial-ground  of  Cumnock  parish,  and  a  grave- 
stone was  afterwards  laid  above  it,  with  this 
inscription : — 

"HERE  LIES  ALEXANDER   PEDEN,   A 

FAITHFUL  MINISTER  OF  THE  GOSPEL,  SOME- 
TIME AT  GrLENLUCE,  WHO  DEPARTED  THIS 

LIFE  JANUARY  28,  1686,  AND  WAS  RAISED 
AFTER  SIX  WEEKS  OUT  OF  HIS  GRAVE,  AND 
BURIED  HERE  OUT  OF  CONTEMPT." 

The  last  we  shall  mention,  is  the  Rev.  Thomas 
Hog  of  Kiltearn  in  Ross-shire.  His  Memoirs 
were  published  at  Edinburgh  in  1756,  but  are 
now  very  rare.  Mr.  Hog  seems  to  have  been 
cast  in  somewhat  of  the  same  mould  with  the 
Rev.  John  O^en.  He  was  full  six  feet  high, 
and  proportionably  strong  and  vigorous,  and, 
during  his  youth,  was  much  addicted  to  the 


OF    THE    BASS.  263 

harmless  diversions  of  that  age.  An  excellent 
scholar,  and  a  highly  moral  man,  even  before  the 
period  from  which  he  dates  his  conversion,  he 
was  respected  and  esteemed  by  a  number  of 
godly  friends,  in  whose  religious  exercises  he 
used  to  join  with  a  great  apparent  acquaintance 
with  the  saving  doctrines  of  the  Cross.  But  all 
this  he  afterwards  accounted,  and  endeavored 
to  prove  from  Scripture,  as  nothing  beyond 
natural  gifts,  until  it  pleased  God  to  lay  him 
under  deep  convictions  of  sin,  and  to  commence 
a  work  of  true  grace  in  his  heart.  He  after- 
wards became  an  eminent  instrument  in  the 
conversion  of  others,  especially  in  the  counties 
of  Ross  and  Moray.  He  was  at  one  time  chap- 
lain to  the  Earl  of  Sutherland,  "  where,"  say  the 
Memoirs,  "  the  work  of  God  flourished  in  several 
happy  souls  ;  a  great  measure  of  charity  was 
due  to  the  earl  and  several  others  in  the  family  ; 
the  lady  was  a  most  eminent  Christian,  and  of 
great  experience  in  soul  exercise." 

Of  Mr.  Hog's  character  as  a  minister,  we  read : 
"  Concerning  himself,  he  was  temperate  both 
in  meat  and  drink.  *  *  His  more  serious  work, 
his  necessary  diversion,  as  visiting  of  friends 


264  THE    MARTYRS 


and  acquaintances,  and  even  meaner  things ; 
were  all  gone  about  by  rule.  He  kept  time  and 
measure  in  everything.  However  lively  the 
frame  of  his  own  soul  was,  he  never  insisted 
long  in  social  duties,  though  he  frequently  en- 
joyed the  breathings  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  a 
very  high  degree.  He  often  expressed  his  dis- 
satisfaction with  the  length  of  social  exercises 
— a  fault  very  common  among  formal  professors 
— as  what  could  not  be  managed  by  many  to  a 
good  account,  and  as  encroaching  upon  other 
necessary  duties  belonging  to  our  respective 
stations.  It  was  his  constant  practice,  both 
before  and  after  family  worship,  to  retire  a  little 
into  his  closet.  In  self-examination  he  was  very 
exact,  and  set  time  apart  for  it  once  a  month, 
and  sometimes  oftener.  He  was  most  reserved 
as  to  everything  that  tended  to  his  own  repu- 
tation. His  concern  for  and  sympathy  with  the 
ignorant  was  very  great  ;,the  bulk  of  the  people 
in  Kiltearn  having  become  very  ignorant,  he 
was  at  great  pains  to  spread  the  catechisms  and 
other  abstracts  of  our  received  principles  among 
them,  and  going  about  from  house  to  house,  he 
prayed  with,  exhorted  and  instructed  them  in 


OF    THE    BASS.  265 

things  pertaining  to  the  kingdom  of  God.  '  His 
people,'  said  his  successor,  Mr.  Stuart,  <  were 
awakened  to  hear,  and  he  was  encouraged  to 
preach  Christ  Jesus  unto  them,  so  that  the  dry 
bones  began  to  revive,  and  pleasant  blossoms 
and  hopeful  appearances  displayed  themselves 
everywhere  through  the  parish.' " 

Such  were  the  men  whom  the  government  of 
that  day  sought  not  only  to  exclude  from  the 
parish  pulpits  of  Scotland,  but  even  from 
preaching  at  what  were  called  conventicles. 
The  circumstances  attending  Mr.  Hog's  being 
sent  to  the  Bass,  and  his  conduct  and  suffer- 
ings while  there,  are  related  in  the  Memoirs  as 
follows  : — 

"  Mr.  Hog  having  about  the  beginning  of  the 
year  1676,  been  again  apprehended  for  private 
conventicles,  and  sent  up  to  Edinburgh,  he  said 
to  some  persons  in  company,  i  I  thank  my  God 
this  messenger  was  most  welcome  to  me  ;'  and 
giving  a  scratch  with  his  nail  upon  the  wall,  he 
said,  '  /  trust  in  the  living  God,  that  before 
my  conscience  shall  get  that  much  of  a  scratch, 
this  neck  (pointing  to  it)  shall  go  for  it.''  Ac- 
cordingly, when  put  to  the  trial,  he  joyfully  sub- 
12 

• 


286  THE    MARTYRS 


mitted  to  a  prison,  rather  than  bind  up  himself 
from  preaching,  and  was  therefore  sent  to  the 
Bass,  where  his  Christian  carriage  and  conver- 
sation, composure,  courage,  and  pleasantness  of 
spirit,  proved  very  comfortable  to  the  other  suf- 
fering ministers  there.  However,  the  air  of  the 
place  and  close  confinement  affected  his  health 
very  soon,  and  he  fell  into  a  bloody  flux,  which 
in  his  case  was  attended  with  peculiar  and  very 
great  danger.  In  this  situation  a  physician 
was  called  to  his  assistance  from  Edinburgh, 
who  gave  it  as  his  opinion,  that  unless  he  was 
liberated  from  that  confinement,  there  was  no 
hope  of  his  recovery ;  and  he  advised  him  to 
supplicate  the  council  for  his  liberation  for  some 
short  space,  that  means  might  be  used  for  the 
recovery  of  his  health.  Mr.  Hog  hesitated ; 
whether,  because  they  were  a  mongrel  court, 
consisting  of  clergy  as  well  as  laity,  or  because 
they  had  no  right  to  deny  what  he  asked,  or 
because  he  had  no  prospect  of  succeeding,  is 
uncertain.  However  the  doctor,  of  his  own  ac- 
cord, and  without  owning  Mr.  Hog  in  it,  drew 
up  a  petition  for  him  to  the  council  in  the 
strongest  terms  he  could  devise,  and  the  better 


OF    THE    BASS.  267 


to  insure  a  hearing,  the  clerk's  dues  were  liber- 
ally paid.  The  petition  was  read,  and  some  of 
|  the  lay  lords  interceded  for  Mr.  Hog,  and  said 
while  he  was  at  liberty  he  lived  more  quietly, 
and  traversed  not  the  country  so  much  as  other 
Presbyterians  did ;  upon  which  Archbishop 
Sharp,  taking  up  the  argument,  said  that  the 
prisoner  did,  and  was  in  a  capacity  to  do,  more 
hurt  to  their  interests  sitting  in  his  elbow 
chair,  than  twenty  oUhers  could  do  by  travel- 
ling ;  and  if  the  justice  of  God  was  pursuing 
him  to  take  him  off  the  stage,  the  clemency  of 
the  government  should  not  interpose  to  hinder 
it,  and  therefore  it  was  his  opinion  that  if  there 
were  any  place  worse  than  another  in  the  pris- 
on, he  should  be  put  there.  This  motion  hav- 
ing been  seconded  by  some  other  of  the  prelates 
and  their  supporters,  was  accordingly  put  to 
the  vote  ;  and  it  carried  the  closest  prison  in 
the  Bass  for  him,  which  was  speedily  put  into 
execution.  When  the  keeper  intimated  the 
order,  Mr.  Hog  raised  himself  up  with  some 
difficulty  in  his  bed  to  read  it,  which^  said  he, 
was  as  severe  as  if  Satan  himself  had  penned 
it.  William  Balloch,  his  servant,  being  with 


268  THE    MARTYRS 


him  when  he  was  carried  down  to  a  low,  nasty 
dungeon  in  the  Bass,  fell  a  weeping  and  cried, 
Now,  master,  your  death  is  unavoidable.  Upon 
this,  the  good  man's  eyes  were  directed  to  the 
Lord  as  his  physician,  and  turning  to  his  servant, 
with  a  countenance  full  of  joy,  he  said — -Now 
that  men  have  no  mercy,  the  Lord  will  show 
himself  merciful ;  from  the  moment  of  my  en- 
tering this  dungeon,  I  date  my  recovery.  And 
so  it  fell  out,  for  the  ver^next  day  he  recovered 
to  admiration,  and  was  in  a  short  space  as  well 
as  ever.  And  yet  afterwards,  when  any  would 
have  been  speaking  of  the  arch-prelate  in  his 
hearing,  he  never  showed  any  resentment,  but 
sometimes  would  have  said  somewhat  merrily, 
Commend  him  to  me  for  a  good  physician." 

Nor  is  the  Bass  a  memorial  of  the  men  only 
of  those  troublous  times,  who  suffered  and  died 
in  maintaining  the  testimony  of  Jesus.  It  may 
be  regarded  as  a  monument,  also,  fitted  to  re- 
call the  scenes  and  incidents  in  which  they  bore 
a  part.  As  a  specimen  of  these,  we  may  give 
the  following  account  of  a  dispensation  of  the 
sacrament,  conducted  by  five  ministers,  four  of 
whom  (Blackadder,  Riddel,  and  Dickson,  being 


OF    THE    BASS.  269 

three  of  them)  afterwards  became  martyrs  on 
the  Bass  : — 

"  We  entered  on  the  administration  of  the 
holy  ordinance,  committing  it  and  ourselves  to 
the  invisible  protection  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts,  in 
whose  name  we  were  met  together.  Our  trust 
was  in  the  arm  of  Jehovah,  which  was  better  than 
weapons  of  war,  or  the  strength  of  hills.  If  the 
God  of  Jacob  was  our  refuge,  wre  knew  that  our 
cause  would  prosper — that  in  his  favor  there 
was  more  security  than  in  all  the  defences  of 
art  or  of  nature.  The  place  was  every  way 
commodious,  and  seemed  to  be  formed  on  pur- 
pose. It  was  a  green  and  pleasant  spot,  fast  by 
the  wrater  side  (of  the  Whitader).  On  either 
hand  there  was  a  spacious  brae,  in  form  of  a 
half  circle,  covered  with  delightful  pasture,  and 
rising  with  a  gentle  slope  to  a  goodly  height. 
Above  us  was  the  clear  blue  sky,  for  it  was  a 
sweet  and  calm  Sabbath  morning,  promising  to 
be  indeed  one  of  the  days  of  the  Son  of  Man. 
There  was  a  solemnity  in  the  place  befitting  the 
occasion,  and  elevating  the  soul  to  a  pure  and 
holy  frame.  The  communion  tables  were  spread 
on  the  green  by  the  water,  and  around  them  the 


270  THE    MARTYRS 

people  had  arranged  themselves  in  decent  order. 
But  the  far  greater  multitude  sat  on  the  brae 
face,  which  was  crowded  from  top  to  bottom,  full 
as  pleasant  a  sight  as  was  ever  seen  of  that 
sort.  Each  day,  at  the  congregation's  dismiss- 
ing, the  ministers,  with  their  guards,  and  as 
many  of  the  people  as  could,  retired  to  their 
quarters  in  three  several  country  towns,  where 
they  might  be  provided  with  necessaries  for 
man  and  horse  for  payment. 

"  Several  of  the  yeomen  refused  to  take 
money  for  their  provisions,  but  cheerfully  and 
abundantly  invited  both  ministers  and  gentle- 
men each  day  at  dismissing.  The  horsemen 
drew  up  in  a  body  till  the  people  left  the  place, 
and  then  marched  in  goodly  array  behind  at  a  lit- 
tle distance,  until  all  *were  safely  lodged  in  their 
quarters  ;  dividing  themselves  into  three  squad- 
rons, one  for  each  town  where  were  their  respec- 
tive lodgments.  Each  party  had  its  own  com- 
mander. Watches  were  regularly  set  in  empty 
barns  and  other  outhouses,  where  guards  were 
placed  during  the  night.  Scouts  were  sent  to 
look  about,  and  get  intelligence.  In  the  morn- 
ing, when  the  people  returned  to  the  meeting, 


OP    THE    BASS.  271 

the  horsemen  accompanied  them  ;  all  the  three 
parties  met  about  a  mile  from  the  spot,  and 
marched  in  a  full  body  to  the  consecrated 
ground.  The  congregation  being  all  fairly  set 
in  their  places,  the  guardsmen  took  their  sev- 
eral stations  as  formerly. 

"  These  accidental  volunteers  seem  to  have 
been  the  gift  of  Providence,  and  they  secured 
the  peace  and  the  quiet  of  the  audience  ;  for 
from  Saturday  morning,  when  the  work  began, 
until  Monday  afternoon,  we  suffered  not  the 
least  affront  or  molestation.  At  first,  there 
was  some  apprehension  ;  but  the  people  sat  un- 
disturbed, and  the  whole  was  closed  in  as  orderly 
a  way  as  it  had  been  in  the  time  of  Scotland's 
brightest  noon.  And,  truly,  the  spectacle  of 
so  many  grave,  composed,  and  devout  faces  must 
have  struck  the  adversaries  with  awe,  and  been 
more  formidable  than  any  outward  ability  of 
fierce  looks  and  warlike  array.  We  desired  not 
the  countenance  of  earthly  kings  ;  there  was  a 
spiritual-  and  divine  Majesty  shining  on  the 
work,  and  sensible  evidence  that  the  great 
Master  of  assemblies  was  present  in  the  midst. 

"  The  ordinance  of  the  last  Supper,  that  me- 


272  THE    MARTYRS 

morial  of  His  dying  love  till  His  second  com- 
ing, was  signally  countenanced,  and  backed  with 
power  and  refreshing  from  above.  Blessed  be 
God,  for  he  hath  visited  and  confirmed  his  her- 
itage when  it  was  weary.  In  that  day,  Zion 
put  on  the  beauty  of  Sharon  and  Carmel ;  the 
mountains  broke  forth  into  singing,  and  the 
desert  was  made  to  bud  and  blossom  as  the  rose. 
Few  such  days  were  seen  in  the  desolate  Church 
of  Scotland,  and  few  will  ever  witness  the  like. 
There  was  a  rich  and  plentiful  effusion  of  the 
Spirit  shed  abroad  on  many  hearts.  * 

"  The  tables  were  served  by  some  gentlemen 
and  persons  of  the  gravest  deportment.  None 
were  admitted  without  tokens,  as  usual,  which 
were  distributed  on  the  Saturday,  but  only  to  such 
as  were  known  to  some  of  the  ministers,  or  per- 
sons of  trust,  to  be  free  of  public  scandals.  All 
the  regular  forms  were  gone  through.  The 
communicants  entered  at  one  end,  and  retired 
at  the  other — a  way  being  kept  clear  to  take 
their  seats  again  on  the  hill-side.  Mr.  Welsh 
preached  the  action  sermon,  and  served  the  first 
two  tables,  as  he  was  ordinarily  put  to  do  on 
such  occasions.  The  other  four  ministers — Mr. 


OF    THE    BASS.  273 

Blackadder,  Mr.  Dickson,  Mr.  Riddel,  and  Mr. 
Rae — exhorted  the  rest  in  their  turn.  The 
table  service  was  closed  by  Mr.  Welsh  with 
solemn  thanksgiving.  And  solemn  it  was,  and 
sweet,  and  edifying,  to  see  the  gravity  and  com- 
posure of  all  present,  as  well  as  all  parts  of  the 
service.  The  communion  was  peaceably  con- 
cluded— all  the  people  heartily  offering  up  their 
gratitude,  and  singing  with  a  joyful  noise  to  the 
Rock  of  their  salvation.  It  was  pleasing,  as 
the  night  fell,  to  hear  their  melody  swelling  in 
full  unison  along  the  hill,  the  whole  congrega- 
tion joining  with  one  accord,  and  praising  God 
with  the  voice  of  psalms. 

"  There  were  two  long  tables,  and  one  short 
across  the  head,  with  seats  on  each  side.  About 
a  hundred  sat  at  every  table  ;  there  were  six- 
teen tables  in  all,  so  that  about  three  thousand 
communicated  that  day."* 

The  Bass,  then,  speaks  with  a  most  eloquent 
and  touching  voice  of  past  attachment  to  great 
and  good  principles — of  a  past  testimony  to 

*  See  Crichton's  Memoirs  of  Blackadder,  where  the 
above  account  appears  as  a  quotation,  we  suppose  from  the 
Blackadder  MSS. 

12* 


274  THE    MARTYRS    OF    THE    BASS. 

those  principles  given  in  the  most  trying  cir- 
cumstances— of  past  consistency  in  rejecting  all 
ensnaring  compromises — of  past  constancy,  and 
faith,  and  patience — and  last,  not  least,  of  God's 
fatherly  care  of  his  Church  and  of  this  nation, 
in  bringing  to  a  close,  without  civil  contention 
or  bloodshed,  that  long  course  of  persecution 
for  conscience'  sake,  of  which  the  sufferings  of 
the  Martyrs  of  the  Bass  formed  a  part. 


APPENDIX, 


I.  THE  LAUDERS  OF  THE  BASS.     P.  [168.] 

WE  are  indebted  to  the  .kindness  of  Sir  Thomas 
Dick  Lauder  for  the  use  of  the  old  Charter  of  the 
Bass,  granted  by  the  Bishop  of  St.  Andrews  to  his 
ancestor  Robert  Lauder  of  the  Bass  in  1316.  As 
a  curious  relic  of  antiquity  in  connection  with  the 
subject  of  this  volume,  we  insert  it  here  with  a 
translation. 

CHARTER  of  WILLIELMUS  DE  LAMBERTON,  Bishop  of  St. 

Andrews,  to  ROBERT  LAUDER  of  Bass,  of  their  part  of  that 

Island,  4th  June,  1316. 

Omnibus  hanc  cartam  visuris  vel  audituris  Willielmus 
miseracione  diuina  sancti  Andrei  Episcopus  salutem  in 
Domino :  Sciatis  nos  vtilitate  ecclesie  nostre  pensata  dedisse 
concessisse  et  hac  presenti  carta  nostra  confirmasse  Roberto 
de  Lauwedre  pro  homagio  et  seruicio  suo  totam  partem 
nostram  Insule  in  mari  que  vocatur  le  Bass  iuxta  Aldham 
in  Laudonia ;  Tenend.  et  habend.  dicto  Roberto  et  heredibus 


278  APPENDIX. 


suis  de  nobis  et  successoribus  nostris  in  perpetuum  cum 
omnibus  libertatlbus  commoditatibus  et  aysiamentis  suis  ac 
pertinenciis  libere  et  quiete  in  omnibus  et  per  omnia  sine 
aliquo  retinemento ;  Reddendo  ipse  Robertus  et  heredus  sui 
nobis  et  successoribus  nostris  apud  Tynyngham  ad  festum 
Pentecostes  singulis  annis  vnam  libram  cere  nomine  albe 
firme  tanttim  pro  omnibus  terrenis  serviciis  et  demandis  que 
de  dicta  Insula  cum  pertinenciis  a  nobis  vel  successoribus 
nostris  exigi  poterunt  vel  dcmandari :  Nos  vero  Willielmus  et 
succcssores  nostri  predicto  Roberto  et  heredibus  suis  pre- 
dictam  partem  nostram  Insule  del  Bass  cum  pertinenciis 
suis  contra  omncs  homines  et  feminas  warantigabimus 
acquictabimus  et  defendemus  in  perpetuum.  In  cuius  rei 
testimonium  present!  carte  sigillum  nostrum  fecimus  apponi. 
Dat,  apud  Wegdall  quarto  die  Junii  Anno  Domini  MCCC.  sexto 
decimo  illis  testibus  Dominis  Willielmo  et  Willielmo  dei 
gracia  de  Melros  et  de  Dryburgh,  Abbatibus  Dominis  Jacobo 
de  Douglas,  Alexandro  Senesscallo,  Henrico  de  Sancto 
Claro,  Roberto  de  Keith,  militibus  et  aliis. 

Translation  of  Charter  by  WILLIAM  of  LAMBERTON,  Bishop 
of  St.  Andrews,  to  ROBERT  LAUDER  of  Bass,  of  their  part 
of  that  Island,  4th  June,  1316. 

To  ALL  men  by  whom  this  Charter  shall  be  seen  and 
heard,  William,  by  the  grace  of  God  Bishop  of  Saint  An- 
drews, wishing  salvation  in  the  Lord : — Know  ye  that  we, 
valuing  highly  our  Church's  advantage,  have  Granted,  and 
by  this  our  present  Charter  have  Confirmed,  to  Robert 
Lauder  for  his  homage  and  service  the  whole  of  our  part  of 
the  Island  in  the  sea  which  is  called  the  Bass,  near  to  Aid- 
ham,*  in  Lothian ;  To  HOLD  and  TO  BE  IIOLDEN  by  the  said 

*  Aldham  was  an  original  parish  and  is  now  part  of  Whitekirk  parish. 
The  church  of  Aldham  is  on  the  confines  of  North  Berwick  parish,  and 
adjoining  to  Tantallan  Castle.  Stat.  Acct.  vol.  ii.  p.  29. 


APPENDIX.  279 


Robert  and  his  heirs  from  us  and  our  successors  forever, 
with  all  liberties,  commodities,  and  easements,  and  with 
the  pertinents,  freely  and  quietly  in  all  and  by  all  with- 
out any  reservation :  Paying  therefor  the  said  Robert  and 
his  heirs  to  us  and  our  successors  at  Tynyngham,  at  the 
term  of  Whitsunday  yearly,  one  pound  of  white  wax  in 
name  of  feufarm,  for  all  lands,  services,  and  demands  which 
can  be  exacted  or  demanded  by  us  and  our  successors  for 
the  said  Island  with  the  pertinents :  THEREFORE  we  William 
and  our  successors  do  hereby  Warrant,  Maintain  quiet,  and 
Defend  to  the  foresaid  Robert  and  his  heirs,  our  foresaid 
part  of  the  Island  of  the  Bass  with  the  pertinents  of  the 
same,  forever,  and  that  against  all  men  and  women:  IN 
TESTIMONY  wliereo£,  we  have  made  and  appointed  our  seal 
to  be  fixed  to  this  present  Charter.  Given  at  Wedall  the 
fourth  day  of  June,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  1316,  before 
these  witnesses  Lords  William  and  William  by  the  grace  of 
God,  of  Melrose  and  of  Dryburgh,  with  the  Lords  Abbots, 
James  of  Douglas,  Alexander  Stuart,  Henry  Sinclair,  Robert 
Keith,  Esquires,  and  others. 


The  following  Letter  will  throw  some  additional 
light  on  the  history  of  the  family  of  Lander  : — 

Sir  THOMAS  DICK  LAUDER  of  Fountainhall, 

Bart.,  to  Mr.  CRAWFORD,  W.  S. 
THE  G-RANGE  HOUSE,  ISth  December,  1847. 
DEAR  SIR, — It  has  occurred  to  me  that  it  may 
be  just  as  well  to  put  you  in  possession  of  the  fact, 
that   the  family  of  Lauder  of  Lauder  Tower  and 
the  Bass,  continued  to  be  the  same  until  the  time 
of  the  Indenture  I  sent  you.     The  Bass  then  went 


280  APPENDIX. 


into  a  junior  branch  of  the  family,  and,  as  the 
shortest  way  of  explaining  this,  I  may  quote  from 
the  Burke  Peerage  and  Baronetage  the  matter 
taken  from  our  family  documents  : — "  Sir  Robert 
Lauder  of  Bass,  so  designed  in  a  curious  indenture 
between  him  and  the  preaching  friars  of  Dundee, 
of  date  1531,  which  document  was  also  robbed  from 
the  charter-chest  by  the  housebreaker  in  1836,  and 
never  recovered.  Down  to  this  Sir  Robert,  the  ti- 
tles of  Lauder  and  of  Bass  were  indiscriminately 
used  by  the  family,  and  it  is  his  armorial  bearings 
that  are  given  as  those  of  Lauder  of  Bass  in  the 
works  of  Lindsay  of  the  Mount.  He  married 
Alison  or  Marietta  Cranstoun,  and  died  in  1561. 
Besides  his  eldest  son,  Richard  Lauder  of  Lauder, 
who  was  his  successor,  he  left  a  son  Robert,  to  whom 
he  gave  the  Bass,  and  other  East  Lothian  lands, 
thus  creating  a  separate  family  with  that  title." 
This  junior  family  made  several  changes  upon  the 
original  family  arms,  for  whilst  they  preserved  the 
griffon  in  the  shield  instead  of  the  white  lion  used 
by  the  chief,  they  took  angels  as  supporters,  and 
instead  of  the  crest  of  the  chief  family,  a  tower 
with  a  man  in  a  watching  posture  looking  out  of 
it,  they  assumed  the  crest  of  a  gannet  sitting  upon 
a  rock.  One  of  the  last  lairds  of  Bass  was  with 


_ 

APPENDIX.  281 


Queen  Mary  upon  Carberry  Hill,  at  the  time  she 
was  taken  to  Edinburgh  by  the  Lords.  Not  long 
after  this,  this  branch  of  the  family  fell  into  decay, 
after  which  the  Bass  underwent  various  tranfer- 
ences,  until  it  was  afterwards  sold  to  the  Govern- 
ment by  Sir  Andrew  Ramsay,  Lord  Abbotshall, 
Lord  Provost  of  Edinburgh,  who  was  my  great- 
great-grandfather,  having  been  father-in-law  to  Lord 
Fountainhall.*  The  sum  paid  for  the  Bass  was 
£4000,  and  the  sale  was  in  October,  1671.  Near 
the  harbor  of  North  Berwick,  on  a  sandy  eminence 
close  to  the  shore,  stand  the  remains  of  what  is 
traditionally  called  the  "  Auld  Kirk."  In  the 
burial-place  of  this,  which  has  been  much  encroach- 
ed upon  by  the  sea,  a  large  stone  lies  flat  in  the 
green  centre  of  the  area  which  the  building  must 
have  inclosed,  and  is  said  to  mark  the  place  of  in- 
terment of  the  Lauders  of  the  Bass. 

I  am,  dear  Sir,  yours  truly, 

THOS.  DICK  LAUDER. 

I.  THE  PROPERTY  OF  THE  BASS. 
The  following  documents  are  interesting  on  two 
accounts — as  showing  that  the  Bass  was  used  as  a 
place  of  confinement  so  early  as  1583 ;  and  that  the 

*  Fountainhall  is  in  the  parish  of  Pentcaitland  and  coun- 
ty of  East  Lothian.     See  Statistical  Account,  vol.  ii.  p.  349. 


282  APPENDIX. 


Solan  geese  and  other  fowls  frequenting  the  island, 
anciently  were  and  continue  to  be,  the  private  pro- 
perty of  the  owner  of  the  island.  The  first  is  a  Ra- 
tification by  Parliament  in  1 592,  of  an  Act  of  Secret 
Council  in  1583. — See  Thomson's  edition  of  the 
Acts  of  Parliament,  vol.  iii.  p.  614. 

"  RATIFICATIOUN  of  ane  act  of  secreit  Counsaill 

in  favouris  of  the  Laird  of  Bass. 
•'  Forsamekle  as  oure  soverane  Lord  w1  avise  of 
the  lordis  of  his  hieness  Secreit  Counsaill  be  speciall 
act  and  ordinance  thairof,  maid  upon  the  xxj  day  of 
Januar  the  zeir  of  god  Jra  Vc  fourscoir  thre  zeiris, 
Understanding  how  profitable  the  solane  geiss  and 
utheris  fowlis,  qlk  hantis  reparis  and  biggis,  within 
the  lie  of  bass  zeirlie  ar  to  the  comoun  weal  of  this 
realme,  and  haill  leigis  of  the  same,  and  how  hurtfull 
the  slaying  and  distroying  thairof  ar  to  the  haill 
subiectis  of  this  realme,  Maide  and  constitute  Mais- 
ter  george  lauder  of  bass,  his  aris  and  assignais  and 
successouris  lardis  of  bass,  his  hienes  comissioners, 
To  tak  and  apprehend  all  and  quhatsumevir  persoun 
or  personis  quha  happynis  to  slay  ony  of  the  saidis 
geiss  or  uther  kind  of  fowlis  and  birdis,  and  To  mi- 
nister justice  upoun  thame  as  accordis  of  the  law, 
like  as  at  mair  lenth  is  contenit  in  the  said  act  of 
secreitt  counsaill,  of  the  dait  foirsaid  Quhilk  act  oure 


APPENDIX.  283 


said  soverane  lord  with  express  avise  &  consent  of 
the  estatis  of  this  present  parliament,  Ratifies  and 
apprevis  in  all  pointis  clausses  articles  and  condi- 
tionis  therein  contenit  after  the  forme  and  tennor 
of  the  same  in  all  points  &  decernis  and  ordanis 
the  same  to  be  insert  therein,  as  ane  act  maid  in  this 
present  parliament,  and  the  saniy  to  stand  as  ane 
perpetuall  law  statute  and  ordinance,  and  to  be  put 
to  decre  executionn  agains  the  contravenaris  thairof 
in  all  points  perpetuallie  in  all  tymes  euming,  off  the 
qlk  act  the  tennour  followis  :  Apud  halyruidhous 
vigesimo  primo  die  mensis  Januarji  anno  dni  mille- 
simo  quigentissimo  octuagesimo  tertio,  Forsamekle  as 
the  kings  Majestic  and  lordis  of  secreit  counsaill, 
Understanding  that  be  the  speciall  benefite  and  pro- 
visioun  of  god,  the  solane  geiss  and  utheris  profitable 
fowlis  hauntiss  and  repairis  in  the  He  of  the  bass,  and 
has  thair  nestis  and  nutriment  thairin  and  brings 
furth  zeirlie  thair  burdis  and  foullis  in  grite  quanti- 
tie  and  nowmer,  and  almaist  in  na  uther  pairt  of  this 
realme,  to  the  greit  weill  and  comoditie  of  the  hail 
subjectis  of  this  realme,  duelland  nixt  adjacent  thair- 
to,  sua  that  reasone  guid  order  and  policie  requiris 
that  the  benefite  qlk  god  hes  placit  in  ane  realme, 
for  the  weillfair  of  the  haill  inhabitantis  thereof  suld 
not  be  certane  privat  and  invyious  persons  be  impe- 


284  APPENDIX. 


dit  and  distroyit,  as  in  vray  deid,  the  inhabitants  of 
the  cuntries  of  fyff  and  angus,  and  utheris  partis  of 
the  north  lyand  adjacent  to  the  sey  cost,  As  alsua 
the  sienien  of  fischeraw,  acbesons  heaven,  salt  pans, 
north  beruik,  dunbar,  skaitraw,  haymouth  and  uthe- 
ris sey  townis  on  the  south  syd  of  forth  ceiss  not 
pntlie,  like  as  thai  haue  not  ceissit  thir  dyvers  zeiris 
bygane  To  slay  and  destroy  the  saidis  Solane  geiss, 
be  casting  off  neittis  &  hykis  with  bait  and  burris 
To  draw  and  allure  the  auld  solane  geiss  to  the  bait- 
tis  quhairin  the  saidis  personis  and  marinaris  ar, 
and  then  to  take  and  slay  the  saidis  solane  geiss,  for 
na  uther  benefite  or  comoditie  of  thame  bot  for  t'hair 
fedderis  onlie ;  ffor  the  saidis  solane  geis  quhen  thai 
depairt  fra  the  said  ile  as  they  do  continwally  anys 
in  the  zeir,  are  auld  and  leyne,  unable  for  any  man's 
meitt.  as  alsua  quhen  thay  returne  anys  in  the  zeir, 
hame  agane  to  the  Ile  are  unhable  to  the  nurische- 
ment  of  ony  persoun,  and  sua  the  saidis  auld  Solane 
geiss  being  so  zeirly  slayne  and  distroyit  as  saidis, 
thay  ar  maid  unhable  to  deck  young  birds  &  geis 
apt  for  the  nutriment  of  the  subjectis  of  this  realme; 
and  will  not  decist  and  ceis  theirfra  wthout  his  hieness 
and  his  counsaill  put  remeid  tharto :  QUHAIFOIR  his 
Majestic  wl  advise  of  the  saidis  Lordis  of  his  secreit 
counsaill  for  stancheing  of  the  lyk  enormitie  in  tymo 


APPENDIX.  285 


cuming  hes  Ordanit  and  ordanis  all  skeppairs  and  ma- 
rinars  of  schipps  or  boittes  and  every  personis  quhat- 
sumevir,  usaris  of  sick  moyen  ingy ne  &  inventioun,  for 
destroying  and  slaying  of  the  saidis  foullis  and  solane 
geis,  To  be  callit  and  convenit  befoir  the  baillies  of 
dunbar,  or  utheris  jugeis  to  be  depute  be  Mr  george 
Lauder  of  bass,  and  his  successouris  lardis  of  bass, 
qlkis  jugeis  the  saidis  Jordis  be  thir  presentis  gevis 
thame  power  ta  mak  and  depute  als  oft  as  neid  beis 
for  quhome  they  sal  be  halden  to  ans  ,  To  sitt  and 
hald  courtis  within  either  dunbar  or  ony  uther  toun 
or  place,  for  taking  cognitioun  in  the  said  caus,  and 
To  call  and  convene  the  saidis  personis  before  the 
saidis  Jugeis,  and  gif  thai  be  fund  culpable  of  the 
saidis  crimes  To  decerne  the  contravenaris  the  fault 
being  proven  be  famous  witnesses,  Ilk  ane  of  thame 
in  the  pane  of  twentie  pundis  toties  quoties,  The 
ane  half  thairof  to  be  employit  to  his  Maiestie  & 
payment  thereof,  to  his  Majesties  thesaurer,  in  his 
name  to  mak,  and  the  uther  half  to  the  said  Mr 
George  and  his  successouris  to  apply,  and  in  cais 
the  personis  quhilkis  sal  happin  to  be  convenit  as 
said  is,  be  unable  and  unresponsal  to  pay  the  saidis 
pecunial  panis,  To  decerne  thair  personis  to  be 
wardit  within  the  place  of  bass  or  ony  uther  pairt 
quhair  the  said  Mr  George  or  his  saidis  successouris 


r 

286  APPENDIX. 


sail  pleis,  during  the  space  of  ane  zeir  thaireftir, 
upon  their  awin  expenss  With  full  power  and  comis- 
sioun  to  saidis  Jugeis  To  direct  preceptis  in  their 
awin  names  for  callin  and  convening  of  the  saidis  per- 
sonis  afoir  thame,  and  poynding  of  the  guidis  &  geir 
of  the  personis  contravenaris  for  the  foirsaid  sowme, 
as  alsna  for  sumoning  of  Witneses  Ilk  persoun 
under  the  panes  of  Ten  poundis,  The  absentis 
to  amerciate  adjudge  &>  unlaw  in  the  said  sowme, 
And  for  the  same  be  thair  awin  preceptis  lykwyis 
to  poynd  and  distrenzie,  to  be  applyd  as  is  above 
mentionat,  Clerkisfiandis.  dempstaris  and  all  utheris 
officiaris  and  memberis  of  court  neidful  To  mak,  creat, 
substitute  &  ordane,  for  qlkis  the  said  lard  of  bass 
shall  be  halden  to  answer,  and  generallie  all  and 
sundrie  uther  things  to  do  exerce  &  use,  qlkis  in  the 
premisses,  and  for  the  executioun  thairof  is  necessa- 
rilie  requirit  to  be  done  fferme  &  stable  halding  and 
for  to  hald,  and  quhatsumevir  thingis  the  saids  jugeis 
sail  lawfullie  do  heir  in  decerning  ordaning  and  de- 
claring be  thir  presentis.  That  the  decrettis  to  be 
given  &  pronunsit  be  the  said  Jugeis  sal  have  the 
lyk  strenth  force  &  effect,  for  poynding  of  the 
guidis  &  geir  of  the  personis  contravenaris  of  thir 
presentis  as  the  decreit  of  ony  other  juge  within 
this  realnie,  And  that  lres  be  direct  for  intimatioun 


APPENDIX.  287 


and  publication  heirof  be  oppin  proclamatioun  at 
the  mercat  eroces  of  dundie,  abirbrothok,  montrose, 
sandandrois,  craill,  anstruther,  pittenveme,  sant 
monanis,  weymis,  dysrt,  kircaldie,  kingorne,  burnt 
Hand,  ahindor,  Inverkething,  and  utheris  sej  townis, 
on  the  north  syd  of  forth  As  alsua  in  the  Townis 
and  heavynis  of  south  ferie,  cramond,  leith,  fischer- 
rjiw,  salt  pan  is  of  Prestoun,  northberuik.  dunbar, 
Skaitraw,  aymouth,  and  utheris  places  neidfull, 
quhauttnow  nane  pretend  ignorance  of  the  same, 
and  to  comand  and  charge  all  our  soverane  lordis 
leigis  To  concur  fortifie  &  assist  the  said  jugeis,  in 
the  executioun  of  the  premisses  And  to  do  nor  at- 
tempt na  thing  to  their  hinderance,  as  thai  ilk  one  of 
thame  will  answer  to  his  Majesfcie  upoun  thair  obe- 
dience, and  at  thair  uttermaist  charge  &  perell. 
Extractum  de  libro  actorum  Secreti  Consilii,  S.  D. 
JSL  regis  1  F.  C. 

The  property  of  the  Bass  was  acquired  by  Presi* 
dent  Dalrymple  by  Charter  from  the  crown,  dated 
31st  July,  1706.  The  description  in  the  Charter  is 
as  follows : — 

"  Totam  et  Integram  Insulam  vel  rupem  vocat  lie 
Bass  ad  nos  proprie  pertinen  jacen.  infra  parochiam 
de  Northberwick,  constabularium  de  Haddingtown 
et  vicecomitatum  de  Edinburgh,  cum  singulis  dom- 


288  APPENDIX. 


ibus  edificiis  partibus  pendiculis  et  pertinen.  pro- 
ficuis  casualitatibus  et  emolumentis  eidem  pertinen. 
cum  omni  Jure  titulo  interesse  proprietate  et  pos- 
sessione  quae  nos  aut  praedecessores  nostri  quobis 
modo  Habuimus  habemus  aut  praetendere  vel  cla- 
mare  potuimus  proficuis  ex  eadem  levan.  et  partic- 
ulariter  absq.  ullo  prejudicio  diet,  generalitatis  Jus 
et  Dispositionem  diet.  Insula  de  Bass  per  demor- 
tuum  Dominum  Andream  Ramsay  de  Abbotshall 
tanquam  successorem  per  progressum  Domini  de 
Bass.  In  favorem  nostro  avunculo  Carole  Secundi 
Regis  beatse  memoriae  concess." 

This  Charter  was  ratified  by  Parliament  in  March 
1707,  and  the  Island  has  been  ever  since  in  the  un- 
interrupted possession  of  the  Dalrymple  family. 


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